Health
Slow, unresponsive and unconcerned: How the Health Professions Council hurts patients
The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is a statutory body that regulates health workers. It registers doctors and disciplines them if they do something wrong. If it had to perform its tasks properly, patients would benefit. Instead, according to several organisations and doctors, the HPCSA’s inefficiency hurts patients.
Delphine Pedeboy and GroundUp Staff
News | 30 October 2013
Daily grind of a Zimbabwean mother
Nancy Muzembe, originally from Zimbabwe, struggles against all the odds to give her son a good education.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 29 October 2013
Having a different HIV status to your partner
Lindiwe Kameni was ill in 2004. “I was in Jo’burg when I fell sick, and I tested HIV-positive”, she says. She told her husband her HIV status and things started to change.
Odwa Funeka
News | 28 October 2013
“It hurts when people call me mad”
“It hurts when people call me mad,” says Luvo Ndinisa. “I asked people from my community to stop calling me mad.”
Nwabisa Pondoyi
News | 28 October 2013
Patents must serve the public interest
It is in the interests of large multinational companies to secure as many patents as possible. The Treatment Action Campaign, in line with the Draft National Policy on Intellectual Property (IP), argues that patents should only be granted for medicines that are truly new and innovative, for example a brand new cancer cure.
Marcus Low
Opinion | 24 October 2013
Patents must serve the public interest
Thousands of people in South Africa have drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Many of them will die. Death from TB can be slow and horrible. Many of those who do survive will struggle with severe side effects and may need daily pills and injections. Some, like 23-year old Phumeza who described her experience of TB treatment at a Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) press conference last week, will live, but lose their hearing.
Marcus Low
Opinion | 24 October 2013
HIV vaccine: some progress, but we’re not there yet
While antiretroviral drugs against HIV are getting more effective and allow HIV-positive people to live longer, the ultimate prize is to find a way to cure people of the virus, the best hope being a vaccine.
Kerry Gordon
News | 9 October 2013
Junior school raises awareness about breast cancer
On October 4, Rustenburg Girls Junior School celebrated two of its teachers who have survived breast cancer by hosting two fundraising events to raise funds for cancer awareness.
Nwabisa Pondoyi
Brief | 7 October 2013
Plans to close and rebuild GF Jooste Hospital delayed
It caused a controversy last year, leaving many people wondering how exactly it would work. But what was supposed to be the closure and reconstruction of GF Jooste Hospital this year, will now only happen in 2018.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 1 October 2013