Sewage is still spilling into the yards of residents in Nyakallong in the Free State despite a High Court ruling against the municipality, intervention by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) and the municipality being placed under administration. Residents…
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…
25-year old Tiisetso Lekgetho experiences painful periods with heavy bleeding that keeps her home two or three days a month, unable to look for work or go about her normal life. Lekgetho, from Tsetse village outside Mahikeng in the North…
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…
Parents in Musina, Limpopo, say drug addiction is taking a toll on families, leaving some afraid in their own homes and struggling to get help for their children. Their concerns come after the Hawks uncovered a suspected crystal methamphetamine manufacturing…
Nine years ago, Health-e News met Matthew Legemaate while he was waiting for a heart and double-lung transplant. Legemaate, who lives with his parents in Gillitts in KwaZulu-Natal, was born with a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot and…
Residents of Matswale township in Musina say persistent sewage spills and the stench from overflowing wastewater continue to disrupt their lives, more than a year after the Public Protector found that authorities had failed to properly maintain the town’s sewage…
For 34-year-old paraplegic athlete Moloko Pula, getting to hospital for medical care means travelling from her rural village to Polokwane and relying on public transport that does not always accommodate her wheelchair. Pula, who lives in Ga-Semenya village in the…
Children in Saulsville, west of Pretoria continue to use public parks where residents say sewage, illegal dumping and deteriorating infrastructure have made the spaces unsafe. When Health-e News visited Forest Park on Chauke Street, sewage was flowing through the park,…
At 21, Brandon Booysen from Randfontein in Gauteng is bedridden with end-stage kidney disease and severe bone complications after living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) since childhood. He cannot sit upright for more than a few minutes because of severe…
If there is a statement that still haunts Llona Makhubedu, it is: “Switch off the machine.” Eighteen years ago, her first-born son, Paballo Makhubedu could not breathe on his own after his birth and was placed on life support. Llona…
For the past five years, more than 800 learners and staff at Seetsa sa Kgwedi Primary School in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, have been living with recurring sewage spills on the school grounds. School governing body (SGB) chairperson, Kehwile Ramaru…
Limpopo. Once a month, Neria Amon’s Grade 9 daughter misses school to accompany her mother and four-month-old twin siblings to Musina Hospital for their routine check-ups. Amon, a single mother who survives on social grants, cannot carry both babies on…
55-year-old Dinah Mlambo, who lives with large open growths on her knee, is supposed to travel 26.5 km from her home in Zebediela, Limpopo to a clinic two to three times a week for wound care. But since losing her…
For unemployed father of three, Ramsenyane Lefenya, volunteering at a community garden in Lenasia South close to Johannesburg, means there are fresh vegetables to take home to his family every day. The 34-year-old father of three children aged 7, 9…
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