Health
Try getting an ambulance in this part of Grahamstown
Earlier this month, Health-e reported the difficulties of accessing ambulances in rural Eastern Cape. Here we report on how difficult it is to get an ambulance in a township as close as five kilometres from the nearest hospital.
Hancu Louw
Feature | 16 October 2015
Silicosis: mining companies hit back in court
Allowing the miners in the landmark silicosis case to act as a class on behalf of other miners would be contrary to the interests of justice, lawyers for the gold mining companies argued yesterday.
Lwandile Fikeni
News | 16 October 2015
Court hears whether silicosis miners can bring class action
Lawyers for the mining companies have begun to set out their case in the South Gauteng High Court, which is hearing an application from mineworkers to be allowed to claim for damages due to exposure to silica dust on behalf of a bigger group of affected mineworkers.
Lwandile Fikeni and GroundUp staff
News | 15 October 2015
Sick miners in court for landmark silicosis case
Bangumzi Balakazi, from Peddie in the Eastern Cape, was among the former gold miners sitting in the South Gauteng High Court this week as the landmark silicosis court case got underway.
Lwandile Fikeni and GroundUp staff
News | 14 October 2015
New technology to help diagnose hearing disability
Software developed by University of Pretoria researchers could bring cheaper hearing tests to South Africa's rural areas. The hearScreen technology, which has been patented and is in the process of being licensed, can turn any smartphone into an audiometer to test people's hearing.
Sarah Wild
News | 13 October 2015
Abortion stigma harms thousands of young women
Many South African women are still resorting to unsafe abortions with illegal providers, often with disastrous implications even though safe legal abortion has been available since 1997.
Thembela Ntongana
Feature | 12 October 2015
Will gold miners get justice?
In King Leopold’s Ghost, the historian Adam Hochschild uncovers the horrors committed in the Belgian Congo in the years before and after 1900. It is a history of slavery, murder and mutilation – anyone who’s seen the pictures of piles of cut-off hands cannot but be horrified by it.
Marcus Low
Opinion | 9 October 2015
Time to reposition one of Africa’s great debates: gay rights
Over the past few years, we have seen an explosion of arguments for and against gay rights in Africa. Those in favour of gay rights point out that they can help to protect sexual minorities by making discrimination illegal, in the process making societies more equitable. Those opposed to gay rights allege that homosexuality only arrived with Europeans, that gay rights are a threat to the African nation, and a threat to the heterosexual family.
Andrew Tucker
Opinion | 6 October 2015
Life-saving drug stopped by sole supplier
South Africa is running out of an essential medicine for treating very sick patients with tuberculosis (TB) and drug-resistant bacterial infections. Many hospitals are already out of stock.
GroundUp Staff
News | 5 October 2015