Earlier  in the year  Health-e reported that Johannesburg Hospital's AIDS Clinic was unable to cope with the increasing load of patients. Nine months later, after  cutting back on patient numbers the clinic continues to only treat about 70 patients on Tuesdays, while new patients are subjected to waiting lists of up to four months. The  facility is staffed by part-time doctors who do it to ensure that the clinic remains semi-functional.

In this audio feature we meet some of the people who seldom make the news headlines, but who make all the difference to those people who are bed-ridden with AIDS-related diseases.

Although South Africa does not feature prominently in UNICEF's State of the World's Children report, statistics reveal how the country is performing.

Since 1959, Cuba has incrementally built a national system of day-care centres and early childhood and pre-school education programmes that today reaches 98,3% of the children in the 0-6 age group. This policy is now being hailed as a true investment in the future of the country's children. Anso Thom reports

"It is deeply ironic that despite widespread concern about the lack of sustainable development in numerous countries around the world, government leaders, policy makers and development agents seem blinded to the one investment opportunity with almost guaranteed returns '€“ ensuring children start a good life." This is how the United Nation Children'€™s Fund (UNICEF) summarises "The State of the World'€™s Children" in its 2001 report. By Anso Thom

A British study shows that the chronic use of pain killers commonly used for arthritis leads to the death of some two thousand patients each year. South African specialists confirm these findings.

While some might baulk at an annual figure of US $3 billion suggested by UNAIDS to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa, this amount is a mere fraction of the $52 billion the United States spends each year treating people for the medical consequences of being overweight.

The impact of HIV/AIDS on the generation of young parents has resulted in many grandparents assuming responsibility for their orphaned grandchildren. Effective programmes of treatment and care would not only enable parents to live longer, healthier lives, they can also reduce the rate of mother to child transmission of HIV and ensure the birth of healthier children who do not need constant medical care.