District managers in South Africa’s public healthcare system currently have to juggle funding from multiple government budget lines, each with different strings attached. To improve district health services, we urgently need to simplify and integrate these funding flows, argues Russell Rensburg.
From the limited rollout of a new HIV prevention jab to developments with new weight loss medicines, to high-stakes court cases relating to National Health Insurance (NHI), 2026 is set to be another tumultuous year in healthcare. Here are nine stories that Spotlight will keep a close eye on.
Vigilantes have unlawfully prevented people they deemed to be foreign nationals from accessing public healthcare services. SECTION27 health activists map out the implications of a Gauteng High Court judgment delivered at the end of last year, explaining that it obliges the state to take active and coordinated steps to remove barriers hindering people’s access to healthcare.
The new board members for the Health Professions Council of South Africa have an opportunity to tackle the growing oral disease crisis by dealing with regulatory gaps and inequity, as well as making decisive reforms to the industry, argues Dr Bulela Vava.
South Africa had several “family chats” in which President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He should do the same for tuberculosis, argues Dr Janet Giddy of the advocacy group TB Proof.
As World AIDS Day 2025 swings by, CAPRISA Director Professor Salim Abdool Karim reflects on the frantic days following this year’s unprecedented cuts to health aid and research funding from the US, arguing that the deliberate disruptiveness was designed to be cruel. Nonetheless, he argues, our HIV response must now forge ahead on a path that is more affordable, sustainable and independent.
Medicines are among the most powerful tools in healthcare, but they also come with risks. As we mark #MedSafetyWeek, Mr Vincent Tlala, registrar and CEO of the South African Pharmacy Council, argues that the safe use of medicines is a shared responsibility, and is not only up to pharmacists.
We need to confront the racialised and class-based structures that still dictate society’s oral health outcomes, argues Dr Bulela Vava as we head toward the end of this year’s National Oral Health Month.
A new HIV prevention jab has the potential to bring an end to the AIDS epidemic. But a lack of ambition and unjustifiable secrecy over pricing is holding it back, argue three leading health activists.
Spotlight and GroundUp published a two-part exposé showing how US aid cuts led to the deaths of children in Mozambique. Here, Jesse Copelyn considers what led to this tragedy and who should bear responsibility for it.
South Africa is staging a sequel to Mbeki-era denialism, only this time, the science, solutions, and costs are clearer, argues Professor Francois Venter.
South Africa still lacks an action plan after the withdrawal of US aid for HIV and related health services. But when funds do arrive, how will they be managed? Russell Rensburg suggests the answer may lie in the District Health Programme Grant.