Refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and undocumented people are estimated to make up around 4 million of the people living in South Africa. That is nearly 7% of the country’s total population yet there is still no clarity on the process to register and vaccinate undocumented people.
Health facility assessments are crucial to ensure patients’ needs for care are met, but often these assessments become a box-ticking exercise the country can ill afford, writes René Sparks.
Six years after the Life Esidimeni tragedy, an inquest into the circumstances under which more than a thousand psychiatric patients were moved into the care of NGOs and about 144 died, is set to start in the North Gauteng High Court in July. Meanwhile, some mental health NGOs and activists maintain that the Gauteng Department of Health is still short-changing mental health services. Thabo Molelekwa reports.
Around 58% of staff at a local university’s health science faculty, including those jointly working in public hospitals, report having been bullied more than once. Elna Schütz spoke to medical practitioners and experts about the prevalence and impact of bullying, and other toxic workplace conditions on health workers’ mental health and patient care.
Rates of Serious Adverse Events that result in unintended harm to patients are disturbingly high in Gauteng public hospitals. Thabo Molelekwa spoke to health activists and government to see what is at the root of these risks to patient safety and what is done to curb it.
As Charlotte Maxeke Hospital missed its date to reopen this month after a fire in April, there are concerns that the true cost of the fire is still to be counted and that the fire is just another indication of a health department and fire service in crisis. Ufrieda Ho reports
Medico-legal claims in the public healthcare sector have been sharply increasing since at least 2014 and are taking huge bites out of already stretched provincial budgets. Motheo Brodie and Sasha Stevenson of SECTION27 assess what impact a recent court judgment and proposed legislation might have on the problem.
Last year there were over a thousand unidentified and unclaimed bodies in Gauteng mortuaries. Thabo Molelekwa asked health authorities in Gauteng about plans to address this backlog.
Oral health is critical to people’s overall health, but a dire shortage of oral health practitioners in the public health sector means that many people are not getting the oral healthcare services they need. Luvuyo Mehlwana spoke to health officials and oral health experts about the state of oral health services in the country.
One of the biggest challenges now facing South Africa’s HIV response is how to support many more people living with HIV to engage or re-engage and then stay on treatment. One way to make it easier for people living with HIV to adhere to treatment is to provide a longer supply of medicines, argues Ndivhuwo Rambau & Simphiwe Xaba.
Among several significant barriers to accessing abortion services, experts cite a lack of management support at health facilities, costs, fear of breach of confidentiality and stigma. Many of these barriers are compounded in rural areas. Tiyese Jeranji reports.
The delivery of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine once it becomes available in South Africa will be a complex and costly logistical exercise. Acquiring enough injection devices is part of crucial logistical planning to ensure rapid, equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. Adele Baleta reports.
