Health
AIDS medicine stockouts put thousands at risk
South Africa’s anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment programme is often hailed as one of the most important public health successes. It is the world’s largest ARV programme, with over two million patients initiated on treatment. But it has serious problems: many patients often go without medicines because of stockouts.
Koketso Moeti
News | 28 November 2013
Controlling quackery: will new regulations help?
Untested nonsense medicines and adverts to buy them are prolific. But after years of chaos in the alternative medicine market, it seems the Department of Health (DOH) is intent on fixing the mess.
Kevin Charleston
Opinion | 26 November 2013
Dozens of unpaid asbestosis claims leave sick workers unsupported for years
Cassiem Mohammed is a 70-year-old retired boiler cleaner from the now-closed Athlone Power Station (APS). He was diagnosed with asbestosis (fibrosis of the lung) in the mid-1990s from exposure to asbestos while he was working at the APS.
Jonathan Dockney
News | 13 November 2013
Ambrosini is wrong about cancer
Receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis in your early 50s is frightening. It is difficult to imagine what Mario Ambrosini is going through. That he wishes to beat cancer and that he is disappointed with medical science because it offers him so little hope is entirely understandable.
Nathan Geffen, GroundUp Editor
Opinion | 4 November 2013
Health Professions Council tried to stop exposure of Eastern Cape health crisis
Instead of fulfilling its vision to “enhance the quality of health”, the Health Professions Council (HPCSA) tried to stop details of the health crisis in the Eastern Cape being made public.
GroundUp Staff
News | 4 November 2013
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