Community health workers demand more pay
Hundreds of Gauteng community health workers recently protested outside Gauteng Department of Health offices to demand stipend increases, annual leave and permanent employment.
Health Systems
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Woman alleges nurses threatened to beat her
Clinic nurses in Hammanskraal north of Pretoria allegedly threatened to beat the family of one pregnant woman after she came to the clinic fearing that she was losing her baby.
White paper: National Health Insurance for South Africa
The 97-page paper outlines the country’s path to universal health coverage over 14 years and proposes dramatic changes in the role of private medical aids and the National Health Laboratory Services among others.
White Paper fuzzy on how to get private doctors’ buy-in
We’ve finally been given government’s blue-print for how it plans to marry the private and public health sectors – the NHI White Paper. But many areas are fuzzy, particularly how it will persuade private doctors to work in a system that is likely to mean more work and less pay.
NHI will reduce medical aids to ‘complementary services’
Government’s White Paper on the National Health Insurance (NHI) proposes a single, compulsory medical scheme for all, with private medical schemes being reduced to offering “complementary services”.
NHI White Paper out today
Government’s plan to set up a massive national medical aid with compulsory contributions from all working South Africans, is becoming a reality.
Rise of killer superbugs continues
Factory farming and excessive pill-popping is driving the development of ‘superbugs’ able to evade our best medicines, making death from common infections possible once again. Now resistance to one of the very last effective antibiotics has been discovered.
Free State ‘fails to act against shortage of drugs, doctors’
A civil society inquiry has accused the Free State of failing to act on alleged shortages of medicine, health professionals and ambulances. The Free State says the inquiry is politically motivated.
Patients walk as far as 18km as KZN hospital remains under seige
Airlifted food shipments have brought some relief to barricaded Bethesda District Hospital, which has been largely cut off from patients and supply deliveries for four days forcing some patients to walk up to 18 km for medical attention.
Unbundling the monster
Dyfunction. Maladministration. Incoherence – a damning ministerial task team report on the Health Professions Council of SA signals the end of an era where the top officials could do as they pleased. But will change come fast enough for foreign doctors who are twisting in the wind?
Patients, staff stranded as protests encircle KZN hospital
Staff and patients at Bethesda District Hospital have been left stranded as local communities protest water shortages. Community members say patients have been unable to access treatment and emergency cases have been diverted since protests started Wednesday.
Report: Ministerial task team report on HPCSA
The nine-page executive summary of the almost 100 page report outlines problems at the Health Professionals Council of South Africa (HPCSA) unearthed by a ministerial task team convened by Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi.
Heads to roll at HPCSA after damning report
Heads are likely to roll at the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) after a ministerial task team found its three top officials were “unfit” to hold their positions.
New hospital shows cracks after just a year
A little more than a year after the Thelle Mogoerane Regional Hospital opened, cracks have already begun to show at the hospital literally as patients report cracked walls in at least one ward.
Limpopo ambulance shortage blamed for death
On the heels of a South African Human Commission announcement that a national inquriy will be held on the state of emergency medical services (EMS), another man’s death has been blamed on ambulance shortages – this time in Limpopo