Critics raise alarm over leadership issues at Gauteng health department
Several opposition politicians and commentators have flagged what appears to be chronic leadership problems at the Gauteng Department of Health. Ufrieda Ho reports.
South Africa’s AIDS response: Progress, challenges, and opportunities
Ahead of World AIDS Day 2024, Professor Salim Abdool Karim and Dr Nikita Devnarain argue that South Africa needs a concerted effort to reduce new HIV infections in young women and to prepare for the rollout of long-acting forms of HIV prevention alongside a well-functioning HIV treatment programme.
Where in SA someone lives determines how many ARVs they get at a time
Whether or not someone living with HIV in South Africa gets a one- or three-months’ supply of antiretrovirals at a time depends partly on the clinic where they happen to go for HIV care. Ahead of World AIDS Day 2024, Elri Voigt unpacks the legal and policy issues relating to prescriptions and HIV medicine refills and asks why people living with HIV are treated so differently in different parts of the country.
Why the fuss about long-acting antiretrovirals for HIV?
HIV prevention injections that can provide two, or even six, months of protection per shot have arguably been the biggest HIV story of the year. Ahead of World AIDS Day, Professor Francois Venter assesses the state of play and the critical next steps with these potentially game-changing new tools in the fight against HIV.
The high cost of having too few pharmacists in SA
It’s acknowledged in key policy documents, well known at the coalface and much ventilated in the media: South Africa’s public healthcare system has too few healthcare workers, especially medical doctors, certain specialists, and theatre nurses. Less recognised however is the shortage of public sector pharmacists. Chris Bateman lifts the lid on this until now largely hidden problem – and its impact.
#InTheSpotlight | SA has started a TB revolution – can we see it through?
Over the last decade, it has become clear that South Africa’s progress against TB depends on diagnosing more people more quickly. In this Spotlight special briefing, Marcus Low asks how we can best go about it.
Signed and stalled: Critical healthcare deal in Gauteng teetering on the brink
An extended impasse over a vital agreement for training and improved hospital management between the Gauteng Department of Health and Wits University remains derailed, despite behind the scenes efforts to get it back on track, reports Ufrieda Ho.
NHI offers an opportunity to boost primary healthcare – we must seize it
To see National Health Insurance primarily as the setting up of a state-run medical aid scheme risks underplaying its massive potential to restructure how public healthcare services are organised and funded, and with that, its potential to boost the delivery of primary healthcare services in South Africa, argues Russell Rensburg.
Family physicians poised for bigger role in public healthcare – after years on the sidelines
Around twenty years ago, family physicians seemed set to take up roles as critical cogs across South Africa’s public healthcare system, but in the years since, doctors trained in this speciality have largely been underutilised. That is now finally set to change, according to the Department of Health, Chris Bateman reports.
Highrises, hellholes and healthcare – Hillbrow’s heritage story
Hillbrow started out as Johannesburg’s first health hub in the late 1880s. It’s also been a suburb associated with pimps and prostitution, a middle finger to the Nationalist Party, and a key site of the HIV crisis. Today, it’s the forgotten flatlands of inner city decay … but in small pockets it stays true to its heritage of bringing healthcare to the city’s most overlooked.
NHI Act offers no answer to high medicines prices
The National Health Insurance Act does not deal with the systemic issues that cause high prices and inequity in medicine access, and government is not listening, argues Fatima Hassan.
#InTheSpotlight | How will NHI unfold? Here are three possible scenarios
As health department officials move to set up National Health Insurance’s basic structures, including its board, several experts say the scheme remains a pipe-dream, doomed to the same fate as Gauteng’s aborted e-tolls project. In this Spotlight special briefing, Jesse Copelyn outlines three possible scenarios for how NHI might pan out over the coming years.
