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.
Researchers have been trying to develop antiretroviral medicines that can last for weeks, months or even years per dose. Two such long-acting formulations have been approved in South Africa, but several more are on the horizon. Elri Voigt explores the science behind what makes a formulation long-acting and takes a look at some particularly exciting prospects.
An estimated 54 000 people died of tuberculosis in South Africa in 2022 and around 280 000 fell ill with the disease, according to just-released figures from the World Health Organization. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the figures and what they mean for the country’s TB response.
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.
Dr Juli Switala (42) has treated children in Nigeria, helped fatally ill patients during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, and delivered babies at a hospital in Afghanistan against a backdrop of upheaval and violence. But nowhere cuts close to her heart quite like Brooklyn Chest – the tuberculosis (TB) hospital on Cape Town’s north-western fringes. Biénne Huisman chatted with Switala about her work in hospitals around the world, the challenges of treating kids with TB, and going for a run to get away from it all.
Newly announced results of a pivotal phase 3 trial have demonstrated the effectiveness of a new treatment for gonorrhoea. The medicine, zoliflodacin, is the first new drug developed to treat gonorrhoea in over 30 years. More than half of the 930 patients in the trial were from South Africa. Catherine Tomlinson reports.
As a type 1 diabetic, first diagnosed only days away from slipping into a hyperglycaemic coma, diabetes education is close to Bridget McNulty’s heart. Biénne Huisman chatted to McNulty about living with the condition, starting South Africa’s largest online diabetes community, and what can be done to improve diabetes education in South Africa.
Over the last decade, the National Health Department has rolled out a range of electronic surveillance systems to monitor medicine stocks throughout the country’s healthcare facilities, but stockouts persist due to a host of ongoing challenges. Jesse Copelyn takes a closer look at what is being done to ensure that our clinics and pharmacies do not run out of important medicines.
Concerns around corruption and whether or not there would be health coverage for foreign nationals were two of the top talking points at a recent public hearing on the National Health Insurance Bill held in the Eastern Cape. Luvuyo Mehlwana reports.
The Eastern Cape Department of Health have for years made headlines for the wrong reasons. A few weeks prior to her recent removal as head of the department, Dr Rolene Wagner made the case that the situation is being turned around. Tiyese Jeranji looks back at Wagner’s presentation at the Rural Health Conference in Chintsa and asks whether the reforms will continue in her absence.
It is often enlightening to ask how and why certain services differ in the ways they do between the private and public healthcare sectors. By too rigidly focusing on the NHI Bill, argues Spotlight Editor Marcus Low, government risks losing sight of the many other interesting answers to this and other important questions about healthcare reform in South Africa.
