South Africa: In-Depth - Will Eastern Cape Health Reforms Survive the Change in Leadership?

The Eastern Cape Department of Health has for years made headlines for the wrong reasons. These include overcrowded hospital wards, dilapidated infrastructure, food shortages,… Read more »

South Africa: Exciting Health Reforms Are Possible If We Can Move Beyond All the Political Sclerosis

It is often enlightening for us at Spotlight to ask how and why certain services differ in the ways they do between the private and public healthcare sectors. Read more »

South Africa: Childhood Exposure to Violence Associated With Mental Health Conditions Later in Life, Experts Say

That South Africa has unusually high levels of inter-personal violence is clear from the country's crime statistics and regular news reports about violent crime. The knock-on… Read more »

South Africa: Interview - Rural Doctor of the Year Reflects On the Rutted Road to Quality Healthcare

Describing the rutted gravel road between Butterworth and Tafalofefe District Hospital in the Eastern Cape, Dr Bukiwe Spondo uses the word "terrible" at least eighteen times.… Read more »

Uganda: Interview - a Simple Device Used After Birth Can Help Save Lives, Says Award-Winning Young Innovator

As a child growing up in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, Maureen Etuket used a screwdriver to dismantle electronic appliances and toy trucks. "I was around eight, nine years old,"… Read more »

South Africa: In-Depth - Can Co2 Monitors Help Protect Healthcare Workers From TB?

One of the ways that someone can become infected with tuberculosis (TB) is through airborne transmission - breathing in TB molecules that are exhaled into the air by a person with… Read more »

South Africa: Mabuyane Under Fire for Moving Eastern Cape Head of Health

This week, several healthcare stakeholders have slammed Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane's announcement that the heads of several provincial departments have been seconded to… Read more »

South Africa: Hospital Histories - Sizwe, Where Lives Have Been Saved Since Joburg's Earliest Days

How the story of a frustrated TB patient raging at doctors and nurses with a knopkierrie in hand transformed into a story with a happy ending, sums up a TB hospital where… Read more »

South Africa: 'There's So Much Respiratory Disease and There's So Much to Be Done,' Says Leading Paediatrics Prof

New vaccines to protect infants and unborn babies from contracting highly contagious seasonal Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) were just approved in the United States. Speaking… Read more »

South Africa: This Court Case Will Literally Determine Whether Some People Get to Breathe

In a pivotal case for access to affordable medicines in South Africa, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Southern Africa - represented by… Read more »

South Africa: How Does SA Measure Up Against New TB Recommendations?

A new report from the Lancet Commission on Tuberculosis (TB) titled 'Scientific advances and the end of tuberculosis' makes several recommendations for how governments should go… Read more »

South Africa: Many in Eastern Cape Still Denied Health Services Despite Some Improvements, Report Finds

A woman in her forties who is living with HIV says she was denied services at a public healthcare facility because she didn't have a transfer letter, resulting in her treatment… Read more »

South Africa: Mixed Reactions Over Gauteng Jobs Campaign and What It May Mean for Health

In June this year, the Gauteng government launched a major recruitment drive called Nasi iSpani. As explained on Business Live by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi, the Nasi iSpani… Read more »

South Africa: Better Data and Transparency Needed If We Are to Live Up to TB Rhetoric At UN

There is a renewed global commitment to tackle tuberculosis (TB) from global leaders who are meeting in New York today for the United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB. The meeting… Read more »

South Africa: Clinical Associates Praised At Rural Health Conference, but Questions Remain Over Government Backing

South Africa faces chronic healthcare worker shortages and the country's Human Resources for Health Strategy 2030 has warned of an impending healthcare worker crisis. The shortages… Read more »

South Africa: 'The Only Good TB Bacillus Is a Dead One', Says UCT's Prof Valerie Mizrahi

World-leading tuberculosis researcher Professor Valerie Mizrahi was 35 when her mother Etty started losing weight and coughing furiously. After healthcare professionals in… Read more »

South Africa: Concerns Raised At Public Health Conference Over Freezing of Healthcare Worker Posts

The National Treasury's Cost Containment Letter sent to government departments instructing, among others, the freezing of posts was one of the big themes underlying talks about… Read more »

South Africa: Orthopaedic Surgery - What Is Behind SA's Long Waiting Lists?

As of last year, there were 3 449 patients waiting on orthopaedic surgeries in five provinces - Free State, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape, and Limpopo - according to a… Read more »

South Africa: Free State Bottom of the List When It Comes to Multi-Month Dispensing of ARVs, Survey Finds

The percentage of people living with HIV receiving a three to six-month supply of ARVs at a time in the Free State has dropped from 13% last year to 3% this year, making the… Read more »

South Africa: In-Depth - Why an Eastern Cape TB Hospital Closed and What Comes Next

In 2021, Orsmond TB Hospital in Nelson Mandela Bay closed its doors as a result of its dwindling patient numbers. The Eastern Cape Department of Health decided to repurpose it as a… Read more »

South Africa: Arsenic-Contaminated Drinking Water Found in Two SA Villages - Scientists Blame Government Mismanagement

A study published in April this year found that residents in two villages in Limpopo's Giyani local municipality have dangerous amounts of arsenic in their drinking water - a… Read more »

South Sudan: In-Depth - What Two Major Bills Might Mean for Health Sector Procurement in SA

Recently, in a major feat for transparency and accountability, the North Gauteng High Court ordered that the public must have access to COVID-19 procurement contracts - details of… Read more »

South Africa: A UN Meeting On TB Is At Best a Means to More Important Ends

In 2018 the first findings from a landmark tuberculosis (TB) vaccine trial were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The experimental vaccine, called M72, was found to… Read more »

South Africa: Hospital Histories - the Many Lives That Started At Mowbray Maternity

Weighing little more than three bricks of butter, baby Lunathi Sitembile is pressed against mum Yolanda's bare chest, a thin tube entering her nostril and another taped to her tiny… Read more »

South Africa: MTN Temporarily Pulled Plug On Eastern Cape Health Due to Non-Payment

In August, telecommunications company MTN joined the list of service providers who have temporarily withdrawn services because the Eastern Cape Department of Health failed to pay… Read more »