Whether it is in the queue outside a community healthcare clinic, in a GP’s waiting room, or in the ICU at a private sector hospital, infections acquired at healthcare facilities pose a threat to people’s health. Nthusang Lefafa looks at government’s recently relaunched infection prevention and control plans and some obstacles to its implementation.
The Northern Cape provincial government is still deciding whether or not to act against two of the province’s top health officials who this week appeared in court on charges of fraud and corruption. Opposition parties and trade unions are calling for the officials to be suspended.
Spotlight first interviewed physician and infectious diseases specialist Dr Arifa Parker in May last year as South Africa’s first wave of COVID-19 was building up. Eleven very difficult months later, Bienne Huisman checks in with Parker to hear how things are going on the frontlines at Tygerberg Hospital.
The delivery of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine once it becomes available in South Africa will be a complex and costly logistical exercise. Acquiring enough injection devices is part of crucial logistical planning to ensure rapid, equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. Adele Baleta reports.
Medicine stockouts can have dire consequences. Tendai Mafuma and Ruth Dube look at lessons learnt over the years on how to help prevent medicine stockouts and argue that although the interventions are not new, if implemented it could help solve the vicious cycle of medicine stockouts in the Eastern Cape.
Even as the need for a more equitable health system is being demonstrated, news has broken of large-scale corruption in the procurement of PPE. This makes it difficult for a population worn down by corruption to envisage the transformation of the health system into a system of contracting and procurement under National Health Insurance, writes Sasha Stevenson.
On Friday (10 April) Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize recommended that members of the public wear cloth facemasks of at least three layers. In so doing, Mkhize gave direction on an issue that has created much uncertainty. Dr Kerrin Begg unpacks the science and policy driving this decision.
In South Africa’s war against COVID-19 community healthcare workers are foot soldiers on the frontlines. Spotlight spoke to CHWs from across the country about their concerns regarding a lack of protective equipment and job security.
Healthcare workers are sounding the alarm as life-saving protective equipment runs critically low in facilities across South Africa, and the world, due to increased demand created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
