Health Budget 2024 fails to address poverty-related health issues and build trust for NHI – SAMRC

By Wanga Zembe, Donela Besada, Funeka Bango, Tanya Doherty, Catherine Egbe, Charles Parry, Darshini Govindasamy, Renee Street, Caradee Wright and Tamara Kredo, February 28, 2024

Posted in: Access to Medicines, Child health, Latest, NHI, Opinions, Spotlight

The 2024 national budget offer some glimmers but allocations for direct health benefits fall short of making a difference to people’s health and wellbeing. These include a ring-fenced allocation to crack down on corruption in health to inspire trust for the National Health Insurance, taxing accessories for e-cigarettes, a jacked up child-support grant, clarity on plans dealing with climate change and its impacts on human health, and finally greater investment to enhance women’s capabilities alongside the Covid-19 grant, researchers from the South African Medical Research Council write exclusively for Spotlight.

Health Budget 2024 fails to address poverty-related health issues and build trust for NHI – SAMRC

Pilot project in SA now offering HIV prevention injection

By Elri Voigt, February 27, 2024

Posted in: HIV/AIDS, Latest, Western Cape

A new HIV prevention injection is now available to a select number of people in South Africa. That a single shot provides two months of protection is one of the injection’s major selling points. In this story, Elri Voigt unpacks how much of the jab is available, who is choosing to get it and what other anti-HIV drugs are being rolled out.

Pilot project in SA now offering HIV prevention injection

Probing mysteries of the dead: Top forensic pathologist looks back as Cape Town gets shiny new mortuary

By Biénne Huisman, February 26, 2024

Posted in: Focus 2, Latest, Spotlight, Western Cape

Mortuaries are grim places, yet Professor Lorna Martin – South Africa’s first woman to head a forensic medicine department – also visits mortuaries when she is on holiday. She was born in Newcastle in the United Kingdom and matriculated at a school in Boksburg on Gauteng’s East Rand. Martin, who has wispy hair and eyes with a glint of steel, spoke to Biénne Huisman about her career working on headline-catching cases and the nearly-R300 million Observatory Forensic Pathology Institute in Cape Town.

Tags: featured

Probing mysteries of the dead: Top forensic pathologist looks back as Cape Town gets shiny new mortuary

There is a ‘worrying’ resurgence of sexually transmitted infections in Gauteng

By Ufrieda Ho, February 21, 2024

Posted in: Gauteng, Healthcare system, HIV/AIDS, Latest, Men's Health, Reproductive Health

There’s a resurgence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in South Africa and around the world. The Gauteng Department of Health recently reported an increase of newly acquired STIs, in particular gonorrhoea and chlamydia. This spike in cases call for management guidelines and awareness programmes to be reviewed, reports Ufrieda Ho.

There is a ‘worrying’ resurgence of sexually transmitted infections in Gauteng

SA’s cancer data has significant gaps – now patients can help fix it

By Elri Voigt, February 12, 2024

Posted in: Focus 1, Focus 2, Healthcare system, Latest, NCDs, Spotlight

There are significant gaps in the data when it comes to understanding South Africa’s cancer burden. Things are however set to improve with an initiative that will allow members of the public to assist in data gathering. Elri Voigt reports on a new patient-led cancer registry that will feed into South Africa’s existing National Cancer Registry.

SA’s cancer data has significant gaps – now patients can help fix it

Patient-centred health care: The NHI revolution you deserve

By Bernard Mutsago and Haseena Majid, February 8, 2024

Posted in: Healthcare system, Healthcare Workers, Latest, NHI, Opinions, Spotlight

A patient-centred health system will remain an illusion under the NHI unless the public health system is ramped up to better serve users and a clear path is outlined for public-private partnerships, argue Bernard Mutsago and Haseena Majid.

Patient-centred health care: The NHI revolution you deserve

EDITORIAL | With elections and NHI, this is a big year for healthcare in SA

By Marcus Low, January 24, 2024

Posted in: Editorial, Gauteng, HIV/AIDS, KwaZulu-Natal, Latest, Opinions, Spotlight, TB

South Africa is barrelling towards its most consequential and most competitive national and provincial elections since 1994. Spotlight editor Marcus Low asks what is on the line in these elections from a healthcare perspective and argues that the stakes are particularly high when it comes to NHI and the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provincial health departments.

EDITORIAL | With elections and NHI, this is a big year for healthcare in SA

Yogan Pillay | This is how SA can meet its HIV targets

By Yogan Pillay, January 15, 2024

Posted in: HIV/AIDS, Latest, Opinions

To respond to the call to end AIDS by 2030, Dr Yogan Pillay argues it is firstly critical to agree on what we mean by ending AIDS. Secondly, he suggests it is important to have accurate and granular data that can inform a more targeted approach to reaching those people that the health system typically does not reach.

Yogan Pillay | This is how SA can meet its HIV targets

We can’t simply close dental facilities during the festive period

By Bulela Vava, January 9, 2024

Posted in: Eastern Cape, Healthcare system, Healthcare Workers, Latest, Opinions, Oral health

The closure of some public sector oral health clinics in the Eastern Cape over the festive period is deeply concerning, having left some patients with nowhere to go. A comprehensive plan must be put in place for efficient management and referral of emergency oral healthcare cases during this time and we must ensure that people who need the services are aware of how to access them, argues Dr Bulela Vava.

We can’t simply close dental facilities during the festive period

Health in 2023: A deceptively busy year in fewer than 1 000 words

By Marcus Low, December 11, 2023

Posted in: Editorial, Latest

2023 was a busy year for healthcare in South Africa. We saw several promising policy developments, landmark court cases, important pieces of legislation, and some changes in leadership. Yet, take a step back and at facility level little seems to have changed. Shortages of healthcare workers persist, corruption is still rife, budgets tight, and our health governance crisis remains as acute as ever. Marcus Low looks back at the year in health in fewer than 1 000 words.

Health in 2023: A deceptively busy year in fewer than 1 000 words

Analysis: Where we are with NIMART 13 years later

By Tiyese Jeranji, December 8, 2023

Posted in: HIV/AIDS, Latest

Once South Africa had closed the door on state-sponsored AIDS denialism in 2008, a critical question was how to offer HIV treatment to as many eligible people as possible as quickly as possible. Given that the health system did not have enough doctors for the job, it was decided in 2010 to rope in nurses to help out. Tiyese Jeranji asks where things stand with Nurse Initiated and Managed Antiretroviral treatment (NIMART) 13 years later.

Analysis: Where we are with NIMART 13 years later

In-depth: What is the situation with self-managed abortions in SA?

By Amy Green, December 7, 2023

Posted in: Latest

While abortion in South Africa is legal and free in public healthcare facilities, it is thought that a large percentage of abortions are performed by illegal providers. This is attributed to a variety of factors, ranging from lack of capacity at clinics to fear of being found out and stigma. Self-managed abortions have the potential to change this. Amy Green reports on the state of abortion in South Africa and how self-managed abortions could help increase access to legal abortions.