#Vote4Health: Is the National Quality Improvement Plan for health good enough?
Quality of care often falls short in South Africa’s public healthcare system. Ektaa Deochand of SECTION27 takes a critical look at government’s plans to improve things.
#Vote4Health: Seven years of struggle at Holy Cross Hospital
The long-suffering Holy Cross Hospital outside Flagstaff, Eastern Cape, has a troubling history. As part of the #Vote4Health series, Spotlight and Health-e News re-visited the hospital after years of turmoil.
#Vote4Health: More than a bucket and a plaster to fix rural healthcare
As the seasons change and summer becomes a more distant memory, May elections creep closer and closer for the country. Campaign posters line the roadways and fight for space on telephone poles of every city and village.
Weight gain with new antiretrovirals: Its complicated
The ARV dolutegravir will soon become part of standard first line HIV treatment in South Africa. Two leading experts discuss what we do and do not know about dolutegravir and weight gain.
Doc explains healthcare for transgender people
Dr Anastacia Tomson outlines the barriers to adequate, safe and informed health care for transgender people.
Stockout of Depo-Testosterone is life threatening
Depo-Testosterone, an affordable injectable hormone, has been out of stock in South Africa for more than three months. The shortage has been described as life-threatening. Karin Schimke reports.
System-wide neglect of the transgender population
The recent stock-out of a hormone used in gender-affirming treatment for transgender men has revealed a system-wide neglect of a large sector of the South African population. Karin Schimke reports.
#Vote4Health: Still no end in sight to orthopaedic disaster in Free State
Orthopaedic surgery backlogs have become old news at Bloemfontein’s Pelonomi Hospital, but it’s still fresh hell for the patients admitted every day and forced to sleep on chairs, on floors and on stretchers pushed up against corridor walls waiting for beds, often for weeks.
#Vote4Health: New hope as Lusikisiki finally gets a new clinic
In Lusikisiki, in the OR Tambo District of the Eastern Cape, the so-called Village Clinic had become emblematic of a faltering health system, in a rural area fraught with chronic illness and early death due to rapidly-spreading HIV and tuberculosis. Biénne Huisman went to Lusikiki to take the community’s temperature. Photographs, Halden Krog.
New guides to advocating in AIDS councils
Spotlight has developed two new advocacy guides for members of provincial or district AIDS councils. One focuses on TB prevention and the other on retention in care.
Silicosis: The names in Paragraph 7
Photographer Thom Pierce reflects on the news that 10 out the original 56 applicants in the silicosis class action have died. Pierce was a key part of a team that created the “Price of Gold” exhibition.
New science: Highlights from CROI2019
Last week the Conference for Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) was held in Seattle, USA. Spotlight did not attend this year’s conference, but fortunately all CROI abstracts and presentations are made available online. Below we have picked some highlights of relevance for South Africa.