South Africa’s National Strategic Plan for HIV, TB and STIs (2023 – 2028) was launched on Friday at Tlhabane Stadium in Rustenburg, North West as the world commemorated World TB Day. Nthusang Lefafa attended the event and spoke to experts and activists about the state of TB and HIV and the work that lies ahead with the new NSP.
2023 is set to be another tumultuous year for healthcare services, health policy, and governance in South Africa. We’ve picked 13 things to look out for this year arranged under three broad headings: leadership and governance, policy and legislation, and HIV, TB and the NSP.
Earlier this year, the annual Child Gauge indicated that child and adolescent mental health services in South Africa are in crisis – mostly due to inadequate resources. How to best provide such services within the constraints of our public healthcare system is an open question. Tiyese Jeranji visited the Michael Mapongwane Community Health Centre in Khayelitsha where a pilot project aimed at improving kids’ access to mental health services is showing encouraging results.
According to some estimates, over a third of tuberculosis (TB) patients have high levels of psychological distress and a quarter have an alcohol use disorder. Following an eye-opening project in KwaZulu-Natal, Atlantic Institute Tekano Fellow Amanda Fononda argues that a diagnosis of an illness (such as TB) should be accompanied by mental health screening for treatment readiness, adherence, and overall well-being.
Tuberculosis (TB) disease and all the disruption and stress that goes along with it can take a toll on someone’s mental health, and mental health problems can in turn make someone more vulnerable to TB. In the wake of World Mental Health Day 2022, Tiyese Jeranji explores the complex links between mental health and TB.
Passionate about community psychiatry, Professor Lesley Robertson spent the bulk of her career as a psychiatrist pushing for mental health reform in South Africa. Now, as head of the community psychiatry clinical unit at Sedibeng District Health Service, she is still pushing – among others to improve the essential medicines lists for psychiatric medicines and shore up community-based networks of churches, community groups, and assisted living homes as soft landings for people in need. Ufrieda Ho spoke to her as part of Spotlight’s Women in Health series.
The latest edition of the South African Child Gauge focuses on child and adolescent mental health and highlights the importance of early interventions for good mental health outcomes. Tiyese Jeranji looked at the report’s findings and recommendations and asked the health department how it will tackle issues highlighted about child and adolescent mental health in the country.
A third or even up to half of women and girls in South Africa aged 15 and older have either experienced physical or sexual intimate partner violence (IPV). Some experts say South Africa almost has a perfect storm of IPV drivers. Elsabé Brits unpacks some of the recent findings published in a landmark Lancet Psychiatry Commission on interpersonal violence and asks experts how we can address this in South Africa.
A rise in teenage pregnancies and gender-based violence coupled with the loss and uncertainty related to COVID-19 are all stressors fuelling the mental health burden the pandemic will leave on children, especially girls. If not adequately addressed, argues Kholofelo Mphahlele, the mental health consequences for a generation of children and young people could far surpass the immediate health and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving harmful long-term social and economic consequences in its wake.
In February, Stix Morewa Hospital in Selby, Johannesburg sent out a letter to the families of the over 400 mental healthcare users in their care. In this letter, families were reportedly informed that the Gauteng Department of Health will terminate its contract with the hospital by the end of March, which would have meant that the mental health users would have had to be transferred elsewhere. Thabo Molelekwa looks at the developments since then.
The Life Esidimeni Inquest stands as a crucial accountability process for a national tragedy that ought never to have happened and should never happen again, writes Julia Chaskalson and Mbali Baduza as they summarise and assess progress at the inquest since October – having previously written about the first months of the inquest from July to October last year.
COVID-19 will continue to dominate headlines in 2022, but from National Health Insurance to the availability of a new HIV prevention injection, it will also be an important year for other areas of health service delivery and for health system governance and reforms. Here is Spotlight’s pick of the top ten issues to keep an eye on.
