ANC support in Gauteng dipped below 40% in the recent provincial elections and an ANC-lead minority government is now at the helm. Among those in Premier Panyaza Lesufi’s new Cabinet is Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko who’s been reappointed as MEC for health and wellness. Spotlight’s Ufrieda Ho rounds up some responses to her return.
Condom distribution in South Africa has dropped dramatically over the last five years, finds a Spotlight analysis of data recently published in the Health System Trust’s District Health Barometer.
In 2001, at age 22, Vuyiseka Dubula-Majola joined the Treatment Action Campaign in its fight to bring antiretrovirals to South Africa. Today, she walks the streets of Geneva in Switzerland to get to her job as head of the Global Fund’s community, rights and gender department. Biénne Huisman spoke with Dubula-Majola about her remarkable journey, balancing activism with diplomacy, and the struggle “to build and regain the dignity of poor people around the globe”.
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.
Some health activists and health professionals this week slammed as disruptive and nonsensical Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane’s decision to ‘second’ the head of health in the province, Dr Rolene Wagner, to a special unit in his office. Many have expressed concern over the impact this may have on providing health services, but Mabuyane insists his decision will not impact service delivery. Luvuyo Mehlwana reports.
A pivotal case for access to affordable medicines in South Africa is set to determine whether people in South Africa will be able to get access to breakthrough cystic fibrosis treatments. Aneesa Adams spent some time with a family living with cystic fibrosis to get a sense of what is at stake.
Specially trained and accredited pharmacists in South Africa will now be allowed to dispense medicines to prevent HIV and TB and to treat uncomplicated HIV without a doctor’s script. This is because the North Gauteng High Court this week ruled against an application by a private doctors’ association attempting to block the initiative. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the judgment and rounds up some responses.
The quest for access to equitable and quality surgical care for all will not be won only in board rooms, theatres, or hospital corridors. We have to take this quest into communities and build alliances. In that respect, we can learn from one of the best examples of how community participation and mobilisation can help change health policy – the movement to ensure access to affordable and universal anti-retroviral treatment for persons living with HIV, argues Professor Kathryn Chu and Sangeun Lee.
Several provincial health departments have stumbled from crisis to crisis over the last decade with no sign of sustained or meaningful improvement. One reason for this, argues Spotlight editor Marcus Low, is political interference and the cadre deployment and cronyism that usually goes with it. If this is correct, is it realistic to think we can address the dysfunction in our health departments without addressing the politics behind it?
A recently published report by the community-led clinic monitoring project, Ritshidze shows that while there have been pockets of improvements at some clinics in the Free State, there are key issues on which facilities’ performance has worsened, especially for people living with HIV. Refilwe Mochoari unpacks the report’s findings zooming in on the situation at Bloemspruit Clinic in Mangaung.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) elected new leadership at its recently held seventh national congress. Thabo Molelekwa attended the congress and asked TAC leaders about the organisation’s focus in 2022 and beyond.
The South African Constitution says the most basic forms of healthcare should be made accessible to all who reside in the country but this is often not the lived experience of many foreign nationals. Kholofelo Mphahlele unpacks some of the realities foreign nationals face at public health facilities and what the law provides for protecting their rights.
