Dr Liezl du Plessis tells Biénne Huisman about the public sector paediatric oncology unit she established in Kimberley, and how a broken system forced her to abandon this dream. She now pursues her passion treating children and teenagers in Pretoria’s private sector.
The two key goals in managing the HIV epidemic are getting as many people with the virus as possible onto ARV treatment and reducing the number of new infections. The results of a study from KZN, published in The Lancet HIV, suggest we’re stalling on the prevention front. The study is well done and important, but the situation may not be as bleak as the authors suggest.
South Africa’s public healthcare system finds itself caught between two incomplete revolutions – the democratic dream of a decentralised District Health System, and the march toward National Health Insurance. Health systems experts argue that structural changes won’t save a system that is scared stiff. The most urgent task facing the system, they say, is to help frontline doctors and nurses reimagine what is possible.
South Africa’s rollout of lenacapavir, a six-monthly HIV prevention injection, requires nurses to learn, adapt and find ways to make it work for patients. Christina Pitt unpacks how.
South Africa has a healthcare worker crisis. Those in power need to face it and think bigger about how to address it, argues Spotlight editor Marcus Low.
As South Africa is piecing together a new policy document on palliative care services for people with life-limiting and life-threatening illness, Motlalentoa Motsoane argues that making people’s lives better will depend on details like accurate costing, sufficient funding, and effective referral systems.
They are qualified, ready, and willing to serve their communities. But scores of these doctors in KwaZulu-Natal, are becoming increasingly desperate because of a lack of posts in government hospitals and clinics. Sue Segar reports.
The road to cancer treatment in South Africa often involves many encounters with healthcare workers and long journeys far from home. From pink iPhone covers to pink embroidery yarn, and cornstarch, Biénne Huisman hears the stories of people from vast corners of inland South Africa, and beyond, who travelled to Bloemfontein for specialist medical attention to treat their cancer. This is part 4 of Daily Maverick and Spotlight’s special series on cancer in South Africa.
In South Africa, tuberculosis is mainly diagnosed and treated in the public healthcare system. On paper, the private sector should also be able to deal with it, but in reality, TB care in this sector is often fragmented and confusing. Elri Voigt asks local experts why things work like this and what can be done about it.
South Africa’s HIV programme is under profound pressure. The answer should not be to make people living with HIV work harder to stay on treatment, but to remove unnecessary visits and use scarce clinical capacity where it is needed most, argue Dr Anna Grimsrud and Lynne Wilkinson.
In recent decades, we’ve seen massive advances against several types of cancer. In a still unfolding example, South Africa’s massive HPV vaccination campaign is set to slash cervical cancer rates in the coming decades. Biénne Huisman unpacks the details in part 3 of a Daily Maverick and Spotlight special series on cancer in South Africa.
Imagine you have been taking a medicine for years. Then one day you are told at the pharmacy that supplies have run out. In his latest Spotlight column, Dr Andy Gray zooms in on how governments can monitor and plan for such shortages.