Community Health Workers (CHWs) are an important element in the government’s re-engineering of primary health care strategy. Here Melanie Alperstein and Tinashe Njanji highlight the challenges CHWs in the Eastern Cape face and offer some solutions to improve the working conditions of CHWs and improve health outcomes in the province.
The exit of Doctors without Borders’ (MSF) rape crisis support in the North West province during the COVID-19 pandemic arguably could not come at a worse time. Is the North West’s Department of Health ready to take over these services? Ufrieda Ho reports.
People with COVID-19 and people with tuberculosis (TB) can experience similar symptoms such as coughing and breathing difficulties as both diseases affect the lungs. Exactly how these diseases affect the lungs, however, differs. Tiyese Jeranji spoke to a leading South African pulmonologist to learn more.
A year after the Competition Commission released its Health Market Inquiry (HMI) report, there has been very little action in addressing the report’s findings. Now, a notice the Competition Commission sent to stakeholders in September suggests there may finally be some movement. Elri Voigt reports.
As South Africa prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals had to come up with plans to deal with the expected influx of COVID-19 patients. Part of this plan was that hospitals would minimise or temporarily put elective procedures on hold. Now, with the country at alert level 1 of its lockdown, Tiyese Jeranji looks at how four provinces are again phasing in elective procedures.
With chronic health worker shortages and limited resources such as ventilators in rural public health facilities, how did Zithulele Hospital in OR Tambo District manage its COVID-19 cases? Tiyese Jeranji spoke to two doctors working at Zithulele about an innovative oxygen solution, infection control, and much more.
The dire state of health infrastructure and services in the Eastern Cape has made headlines during the COVID-19 pandemic and triggered promises of government intervention, but in some hospitals those providing and receiving healthcare note little to no improvement. Luvuyo Mehlwana reports.
Many healthcare workers are rightly identified as heroes of South Africa’s COVID-19 response. Yet, often healthcare workers are given very little support in the public healthcare system, something that may get worse as healthcare worker shortages get more acute in the coming years. Kathryn Cleary investigates.
The South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases on Tuesday declared multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) a Notifiable Medical Condition. Elna Schütz spoke with doctors who have been treating this rare and dangerous condition.
Plans like South Africa’s new Human Resources for Health Strategy 2030 must be backed by political support and appropriate, capacitated institutional structures to bring about meaningful change, argue Manya van Ryneveld, Uta Lehmann and Helen Schneider.
A new government strategy, obtained by Spotlight and Maverick Citizen, estimates that billions of rands in additional investment is needed to improve staffing levels and equity across provinces by 2025.
All schools in South Africa will close from Wednesday as part of South Africa’s efforts to reduce transmission of the COVID-19 virus. Kathryn Cleary rounds up what we do and do not know about the virus in children.