Luvuyo Mehlwana looks back at the performance of public healthcare services in the Eastern Cape over the last five years – a term characterised by leadership instability, infrastructure problems, financial short-falls, and of course the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to shedding light on what people actually die of, autopsies can also play an important role in helping us to better understand disease. Tiyese Jeranji unpacks tuberculosis-related autopsy research in the Western Cape and delves into some of the fascinating complexities of this branch of TB research.
Spotlight visits Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital and sees progress for the struggling hospital but also the reality that there’s a long road ahead to undo what a health ombud report suggests has been years of neglect and poor management.
A new HIV prevention injection is now available to a select number of people in South Africa. That a single shot provides two months of protection is one of the injection’s major selling points. In this story, Elri Voigt unpacks how much of the jab is available, who is choosing to get it and what other anti-HIV drugs are being rolled out.
Mortuaries are grim places, yet Professor Lorna Martin – South Africa’s first woman to head a forensic medicine department – also visits mortuaries when she is on holiday. She was born in Newcastle in the United Kingdom and matriculated at a school in Boksburg on Gauteng’s East Rand. Martin, who has wispy hair and eyes with a glint of steel, spoke to Biénne Huisman about her career working on headline-catching cases and the nearly-R300 million Observatory Forensic Pathology Institute in Cape Town.
There’s a resurgence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in South Africa and around the world. The Gauteng Department of Health recently reported an increase of newly acquired STIs, in particular gonorrhoea and chlamydia. This spike in cases call for management guidelines and awareness programmes to be reviewed, reports Ufrieda Ho.
South Africa is barrelling towards its most consequential and most competitive national and provincial elections since 1994. Spotlight editor Marcus Low asks what is on the line in these elections from a healthcare perspective and argues that the stakes are particularly high when it comes to NHI and the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provincial health departments.
The closure of some public sector oral health clinics in the Eastern Cape over the festive period is deeply concerning, having left some patients with nowhere to go. A comprehensive plan must be put in place for efficient management and referral of emergency oral healthcare cases during this time and we must ensure that people who need the services are aware of how to access them, argues Dr Bulela Vava.
Some residents in the Eastern Cape have been left frustrated by delays or outright lack of response by Emergency Medical Services in the province. This is in part caused by a chronic shortage of ambulances and paramedics. Recent labour disputes have further complicated the situation. Luvuyo Mehlwana reports.
Nosiphiwo Gunuza from Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape was the first college graduate in her family and is their sole breadwinner. The 43-year-old health worker was recently crowned South Africa’s Rural Nurse of the Year. Biénne Huisman caught up with Gunuza.
The Gauteng Department of Health has struggled this year to ensure that patients in the province’s hospitals always have the food they need. Now a decision to source food for Gauteng hospitals via a government contract in Limpopo is raising eyebrows. Thabo Molelekwa reports.
The surgical backlog in the Northern Cape appears to have ballooned in recent months. The province’s MEC for health says it is due to a lack of specialised theatre staff and delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Refilwe Mochoari reports on the latest figures and asks what the Northern Cape Department of Health is planning to do about the situation.