Patients' Lives at Risk as Hospital Runs Out of Stock

Hospitals and clinics in the North West of South Africa may run out of medicine in just days as a go-slow at the province's central medicine depot enters its second month, provincial communications Tebogo Lekgethwane has confirmed. Workers affiliated with the National Health Education & Allied Workers Union are refusing to work until the provincial government meets a set of demands. HIV-positive patients, who would normally be sent at least a month of antiretrovirals, are now being issued with as few as three days' worth of the drugs, said Glenda Muzenda, who manages the Stop Stockouts Project.