Unacceptably long wait for surgery in Free State, healthcare workers and patients say

Surgical waiting lists are not unexpected in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are indications that the situation is particularly acute in the Free State, and possibly for reasons that are not directly related to the pandemic. Also, the department of health failed to offer any explanation or details of current surgery waiting lists and waiting times reported by healthcare workers and patients. Refilwe Mochoari reports.

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Opinion: Health needed a recovery budget, we got the opposite

For healthcare, a post-pandemic human rights-focused budget would have allocated funding specifically for backlogs in access to health services from the past two years, as well as tackling the present inequities in access to healthcare that characterise the public health system. Tshidi Lencoasa, Khanyisa Mapipa, and Julia Chaskalson argue that this year’s budget does not do enough to enable government to realise people’s fundamental human right to access healthcare.

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