The huge workloads being shouldered by nurses are endangering the lives of patients, yet government does not seem serious about negotiating with nurses, says Thembeka Gwagwa, the general secretary of the Democratic Nurses' Organisation of SA (Denosa).
There are over 200 vacancies for professional nurses at King Edward Hospital in Durban and a very small possibility that these posts will ever be filled.
Four years ago, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehwau) launched a transformation project at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
Chief professional nurse Ruth Kgesa has been nursing for 34 years, and today supervises a surgical female ward at CHB Hospital, which has between 32 and 42 patients at any time.
KZN MEC Peggy Nkonyeni has increased the budget of the province's emergency services by almost 30%, but says it is still not enough to meet demand.
The commuted overtime system in Western Cape hospitals is so out of touch with reality that it cannot be implemented without resorting to widespread fraud. Dr Louis Reynolds, Senior Specialist at Red Cross Children's Hospital shares his personal views in this month's edition of Critical Health Perspectives.
Breastfeeding of babies by a non-biological caregiver with HIV is one of the most important factors associated with HIV infection in children. A study released in Cape Town this week also found that there is a potential for health-care acquired transmission of HIV in the maternity, paediatric and dental facilities in the Free State health institutions.
If one is HIV-positive and lives in the developing world is it inevitable that they will also contract tuberculosis? There's no easy answer to that, but because of the sheer scale of TB infection rates among HIV-positive individuals it is becoming standard practice to provide prophylactic medicine to prevent dual infection. But does it work?
Erratic exposure to treatment due to irregular drug supply, inappropriate diagnosis and prescription by health care providers as well as poor adherence to treatment by the patient are all factors leading up to the development of Multi-Drug Resistant TB. Side-effects associated with treatment can also influence patients to stop taking their medication. In this report we visit an MDR-TB referral centre in Klerksdorp, North West.
Government will be able to supply state patients with three antiretroviral drugs (triple therapy) for around R100 a month.
Scientists agree that a short and relatively inexpensive combination of anti-retrovirals could reduce mother to child transmission rates in Africa more effectively than the widely used single combinations, but less than 10 percent of the women worldwide who need it are accessing the drugs.
Only 850 000 South Africans have actually been tested for HIV in the past four years, while 1.2 million people have had pre-test counselling. The low rate of testing is a common problem worldwide, which has led to countries such as Botswana and the US making the HIV test a routine service available at primary health facilities. Does South Africa plan to change its approach to Voluntary Counselling and HIV testing? Health-e finds out.
More people are affected by the negative impact of poor water supply and sanitation than by war, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction combined, according to a paper published in this week's issue of The Lancet. Almost 4 000 children are killed everyday by this 'silent humanitarian crisis'.
A priority over the decade ahead will be to ensure that a caring and competently managed health service is available in every community, Finance minister Trevor Manuel told Parliament during his presentation of the 2005 budget. A huge chunk of the Budget was allocated to welfare spending. Health-e captures the health-related highlights in the new Budget.
Central to the many efforts to address poverty is the safety net provide by state grants. However, fraud and corruption amounting to R1-5-billion is taking place every year, especially in the area of disability grants.
