As of last year, there were 3 449 people waiting on orthopaedic surgery in five of South Africa’s nine provinces. Waiting times in these five provinces ranged from two weeks to over five years. In the Eastern Cape, it can take up to ten years for people to get specific types of orthopaedic surgery. Tiyese Jeranji looks at the numbers and unpacks what it means for healthcare workers and people waiting for orthopaedic surgery.
Elective surgery is often performed on injuries or for conditions considered less life-threatening and some patients can wait up to two years for their procedure, which will often be scheduled and then cancelled when someone with a more serious medical emergency takes their spot on the list. This takes a huge emotional and financial toll on these patients and their families. Alicestine October reports.
Hospitals in South Africa have been put under immense strain over the past two years as beds were filled with COVID-19 patients and elective surgeries had to be put on hold. To make things worse, pre-existing shortages of intensive care trained nurses and other critical staff were exacerbated by healthcare workers themselves contracting SARS-CoV-2 and falling ill or having to isolate themselves. Tiyese Jeranji explores how Gauteng and the Western Cape are catching up on elective surgeries and asks what is being done about the underlying problem of staff shortages.
More than three quarters of 200 hospitals surveyed from across the globe report that their paediatric cancer care services had been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published in the Lancet medical journal. Yet, some large centres in South Africa appear to have been relatively unaffected. Kathryn Cleary reports.
