There are serious gaps in psychiatry regarding treatment, prevention and care for children and adolescents in South Africa. Offering solutions, Dr Anusha Lachman tells Spotlight psychiatric services should be offered in ways that are Afro-centric and culturally sensitive.
That South Africa has unusually high levels of inter-personal violence is clear from the country’s crime statistics and regular news reports about violent crime. The knock-on effects on the mental health of people in the country are, however, less easy to quantify. Thabo Molelekwa reports on local research showing an association between exposure to violence in childhood and mental health problems later in life.
Survivors of sexual assault and gender-based violence (GBV) often require mental healthcare services to deal with the psychological trauma, but these services are often not available in already overburdened shelters and safe houses where resources are limited. Sue Segar visited some shelters and spoke to experts about this unmet need for women and children.
Mental illnesses and the labels that go with these illnesses are often associated with stigma, which in turn influences health-seeking behaviour and adherence to treatment. Nthusang Lefafa looks at how South Africa’s National Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan 2023 – 2030 addresses stigma and asked some experts for their views.
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.
An HIV prevention injection approved in South Africa, several promising developments on the tuberculosis front, the National Health Insurance Bill grinding its way through Parliament, no end in sight to healthcare worker shortages, another dire year for health in Gauteng – Spotlight wraps up 2022 in under 1 000 words.
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.
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.
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.
It wasn’t rocket science when we predicted at the start of 2021 that South Africa’s biggest challenge this year would be to get COVID-19 shots into as many arms as possible. But the way it has played out with multiple setbacks and scrambling problem-solving is not something anyone could have predicted. In fewer than a thousand words, Spotlight editor Marcus Low takes a look back at a tumultuous year in health in South Africa.
There has been an increase in the number of acute psychiatric admissions in the Western Cape since June, adding to the existing pressure on bed capacity in the province’s hospitals. Tiyese Jeranji unpacks the numbers and the provincial health department’s plans to address them.
Mental health does not have its own ring-fenced budget and given huge inefficiencies in our mental health spending, we need to be strategic on where and how we spend the little we have. Alicestine October unpacks what a new government-commissioned mental health investment case framework can mean for access to equitable and quality mental health services in the country.
