Every three minutes, a child with a cleft lip or cleft palate is born somewhere in the world. While surgery can repair this, Kholofelo Mphahlele argues that the real measure of success is a culmination of a very long journey that plays out in classrooms, on playgrounds, when photographs are taken, and within communities and workplaces.
Though the available statistics are patchy, there is little doubt that too many children with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses in South Africa are unable to access palliative care. With limited state investment, NGOs have stepped in, but the need for care still far exceeds what is available. In part 3 of a Spotlight special series on palliative care for kids, Sue Segar zooms out to look at the national picture.
Shut down by the apartheid government for providing care to child patients of all races, Durban’s Addington Children’s Hospital is well on its way from a ghostly ruin into a lifeline for a new generation thanks to visionaries like Professor Hoosen Coovadia. Biénne Huisman spent time inside the historic KwaZulu-Natal Children’s Hospital with its striking artworks and wards named after birds.
Biénne Huisman meets the team assisting despairing mums in Durban, while raising babies and toddlers in a happy temporary home, complete with excursions to Spur.
Despite the proven benefits of newborn hearing screening and early intervention, universal screening is not yet mandated in South Africa and is only available at a few public hospitals.
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.
A child-friendly formulation of the antiretroviral drug dolutegravir was first included in the country’s HIV treatment guidelines in 2023. New estimates suggest that most children aged one to four living with HIV have now been switched to the drug, reports Elri Voigt.
Experts say bacterial infections are responsible for more infant deaths than is generally recognised, and things may get worse as more of the bugs become resistant to commonly used antibiotics. Sue Segar asked local experts about this growing threat to newborns.
The bodily autonomy of young women and girls is under threat as Gauteng Health and Wellness MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko intends to make the contraceptive implanon compulsory for learners as long as their parents consent. This approach to addressing teenage pregnancy is misguided and unlawful, argues Khuselwa Dyantyi.
Mireille Wenger was recently appointed to the Western Cape’s top health job. Biénne Huisman chatted to Wenger about health policy, child health, and the challenge of providing quality public health services at a time of shrinking budgets.
New data from the World Health Organization and UNICEF show that globally childhood immunisation coverage stalled in 2023, while in South Africa it decreased. Elri Voigt unpacks the new data and asks local experts to put it in context.
Dr Moherndran Archary’s research has helped shape South African health policy, most notably the rollout of better HIV treatments for children and babies. Spotlight’s Biénne Huisman chatted to him about the state of HIV treatment for kids and some exciting prospects on the horizon.
