Holy Cross: Some progress, but all is not well
NSP Review COMMENT: The Treatment Action Campaign has for years drawn attention to the poor state of health services in the Eastern Cape. Two years ago the NSP Review published…
Who will fight the good fight?
On September 27 the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) Western Cape marched to the provincial Department of Health to raise concerns about the quality of care provided to pregnant women at…
SCIENCE AND MEDICINE
Smoking and life expectancy in people with HIV A study published in January in the journal AIDS bolstered the view that HIV-positive people in developed countries who smoke lose more…
Condoms in schools
Recently, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) published a second draft of a national policy on the management of HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and TB in schools. Unfortunately, the initial…
Volunteers fighting the good fight
When the 10-year milestone of state-supplied ARV treatment was celebrated last year, some people assumed it marked the end of the fight, and that it signalled that all was good…
Circles of sacrifice
HIV can be unforgiving; but a health-care system that fails its most vulnerable represents a particular kind of cruelty. This is how it is for Giyani local *Grace M and…
Emergency resuscitation needed
For the first time in years, on paper at least, the beleaguered Limpopo Health department has something to celebrate: 110 new ambulances are to be purchased in the 2015/2016 financial…
Failed by surgery waiting list
Doreen Ramaselele is a no-nonsense kind of activist who doesn’t easily take no for an answer. Even when her own cancer diagnosis threatened to strike her down, she soldiered on…
A life-or-death situation
A year ago Phanuel Maluleke was content with the world. His CD4 count was stable, and his fixed-dose combination ARV treatment was working well. Today, he’s worried he might die.…
A life-or-death situation
A year ago Phanuel Maluleke was content with the world. His CD4 count was stable, and his fixed-dose combination ARV treatment was working well. Today, he’s worried he might die.…
The phone call that is a lifeline
There’s a Stop Stock Outs sticker on the back of the consulting-room door of a clinic outside of Giyani, in Limpopo. [caption id="attachment_3340" align="alignnone" width="382"] Bare cupboard mean that nurses…
The long road to recovery
There is a stack of boxes in Macks Lesufi’s office in College Street, Polokwane. [caption id="attachment_3347" align="alignnone" width="570"] Macks Lesufi, head of communications for the Limpopo Department of Health has…