Evidence has been mounting that poor nutrition impacts both someone’s risk of falling ill with TB and how well they do once ill. But as the World Health Organization (WHO) releases new guidelines on TB and nutrition, it is unclear to what extent the South African government is ready to invest in providing people with nutritional support as part of the fight against TB. Biénne Huisman reports.
The NHI Act is facing a slew of legal challenges from multiple organisations. For this special series, Spotlight combed through court papers, and spoke with legal experts to pin down what specific arguments litigants are betting on.
Ritshidze, South Africa’s powerhouse community-led healthcare monitor, is on the brink of shutting down. Experts warn its collapse could unravel years of progress in our clinics – just as worrying new data points to a decline in HIV services.
Government and the private sector could work together much more effectively to improve healthcare services in South Africa, but the potential of such a partnership remains largely untapped, delegates heard last week at the Hospital Association of South Africa conference.
Unlike with medicines, and with a few exceptions, South Africa’s regulator does not assess whether diagnostic tests and other medical devices on the market are safe and work as they are supposed to. The regulator has however started down a road that should eventually lead to the regulation of all medical devices in the country. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the details.
The courts have spoken. The health ombud has issued devastating reports. The Auditor-General has again put damning evidence on the table. Civil society has protested. Yet, the devastating crisis in Gauteng’s health system shows no sign of improvement.
Since President Cyril Ramaphposa signed the NHI Act into law last year in May, eight different groups have challenged it in court. One common argument is that it is irrational and unreasonable to restructure the health system when there’s no money to do so. In this feature, Spotlight dissects how the argument is being applied, and whether it has any chance of success.
A dire picture for HIV/Aids funding emerged at the 12th South African AIDS Conference, raising the call for resilience, adapting and also for government to raise its game, reports Ufrieda Ho.
When South Africans get caught up in the country’s often dysfunctional home affairs system, sometimes even DNA evidence isn’t enough to prove their citizenship. This can, among others, have consequences for people’s ability to access healthcare services. For foreign nationals, navigating the system can be even harder.
In response to US funding cuts for South African health services and research projects, National Treasury has provided the National Department of Health with hundreds of millions of rands in emergency funds. Spotlight and GroundUp look at how precisely the government intends to spend this money.
Spotlight and GroundUp published a two-part exposé showing how US aid cuts led to the deaths of children in Mozambique. Here, Jesse Copelyn considers what led to this tragedy and who should bear responsibility for it.
After the abrupt termination of American aid, the health system in central Mozambique descended into chaos. In part two of this special series, Spotlight and GroundUp describe how the funding cuts affected hospitals, where key staff were dismissed and deliveries of new medicines were halted. In the ensuing turmoil, children died.
