Health-e News’ special reporting series bring together in-depth and community-based journalism exploring the public health issues affecting people across South Africa.
Managing a chronic condition like diabetes requires clear guidance, but a lack of adequate patient education in local clinics is turning routine daily treatments into dangerous hazards. More than four million South Africans are living with diabetes – a condition…
As millions of South Africans head to the polling stations tomorrow to cast their votes in the local elections, the quality of municipal basic services – and how they directly impact our daily lives and health – is at the…
53-year-old Moipone Mahonko, who is partially blind, has suffered burns and cuts while cooking over an open fire since a prolonged electricity outage left 116 households in Lakeside Estate in Midvaal, Gauteng without power for more than four months after…
41-year-old Richard Lebea, who has lived with asthma since childhood, says living next to a wastewater treatment plant and an illegal dumping site on the outskirts of Seshego township in Limpopo is taking a toll on his health. For years,…
Residents in Musina, Limpopo, are concerned about their health as sewage continues to flow through residential streets. Unreliable water supplies force some households to spend hundreds of rands per month buying water. Musina resident, Norah Ndlovu says she fears children…
Residents of Makhuvha village near Giyani in Limpopo say they have been struggling to access clean water since a communal borehole stopped working in March last year, forcing families to buy water or collect it from unsafe sources. Christine Mashel…
For 47-year-old Jonas Molefe Motau, who is blind, getting to work means navigating rocky roads, potholes and a busy road without a pedestrian crossing in Stinkwater, Hammanskraal. Motau walks more than four kilometres to and from his workplace at the…
When Forget Ndou’s sister went into labour in March this year, she had to run about a kilometre from her home at 2am to find a cellphone signal so she could call an ambulance. The 36-year-old Brenda Muleba was experiencing…
64-year-old Josephine Nyama says when she received a call from neighbours at 6am on New Year’s Day, she heard the shocking news that her brother had been found dead on live wires used for illegal electricity connections in Meriting, Lenasia…
The old mine dumps surrounding Slovo Park in Springs on Gauteng’s East Rand are difficult to miss. Three of the mine dumps rise high behind people’s homes, forming part of the landscape of the small community between Bakerton and Welgedacht.…
A year after the City of Johannesburg announced a R150-million project to rehabilitate the decommissioned Kya Sands landfill, residents living nearby say recurring waste fires and smoke from illegal dumping continue to affect their daily lives, with some reporting breathing…
Ahead of the local government elections on 4 November Health-e News is turning the spotlight on how municipal services and their failures affect people’s health with a new investigative series: Elections 2026: Is Your Municipality Keeping You Healthy? While provincial…
Health and nutrition experts say the health consequences of South Africa’s food insecurity crisis can begin long before someone becomes sick enough to need hospital treatment. The scale of the crisis came under renewed scrutiny when the South African Human…
South Africa’s HIV response is, in many ways, a remarkable success story. Millions of people now have access to life-saving antiretroviral treatment (ART), transforming HIV from a fatal illness into a manageable chronic condition. Yet beneath this progress lies a…
For some families, dinner is pap and spinach. For another, chicken and bread must stretch across a household of 12. At a Free State school, a plate of samp, beans and vegetables may be a child’s main meal of the…
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