A special series of the Lancet focusing on South Africa spells out in painful detail how many of our health indicators are the worst in the world. But while our health system is littered with lost opportunities, the Zuma government brings the possibility of real progress, argue the series authors. Kerry Cullinan reports.
Despite the health of women and children being a priority for the democratically elected government, South Africa is one of only 12 countries in the world where the mortality rate for our children has got worse since 1990.
A Cuban doctor once told me that South Africa'€™s national sport was hurting one another. The chapter on violence and injuries, South Africa'€™s second biggest killer after HIV/AIDS, is a chilling reminder of his comment.
Although South Africa has just a 0.7% of the world'€™s population, it has 17% of the global HIV burden. In addition, our tuberculosis epidemic is one of the worst in the world, and is further complicated by growing drug resistant strains of TB and a high level of HIV-TB coinfection.
In 2000, the United Nations member states committed themselves to an eight-point development programme to improve the lives of those most in need by 2015, and these became known as the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs).
Government has added a new vaccine to fight mortality among children under five. The Rotavirus Vaccine, aimed at preventing diarrheal diseases, is the latest addition to the country'€™s Expanded Program of Immunisation (EPI).
Public sector doctors quietly accepted the national Health Department'€™s Occupational Specific Dispensation (OSD) offer, two weeks ago.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the full impact of the swine flu outbreak in Africa has yet to be seen. The agency said this at a regional conference on the pandemic, earlier this week in Johannesburg.
Can you imagine being kicked out of your home or losing your job just because you have HIV? Many people have experienced such abuse because society doesn'€™t know much about HIV. Victims of abuse also don'€™t know that they have rights. But with the re-launch of the AIDS Charter, that'€™s about to change.
Panic over the outbreak of Swine flu in the country has seen levels of absenteeism rise in the workplace. This is according to Kaelo Consulting, a company specialising in wellness and occupational health.
Port Elizabeth'€™s beleaguered Dora Nginza hospital is again facing lawsuits and recently settled out of court after a baby was brain damaged-after alleged negligent treatment in the Eastern Cape hospital'€™s maternity section.
Nutritional experts say it'€™s untrue that all dietary fats are bad. This was one of the topics of discussion at a recent conference of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS), in Johannesburg.
In another opinion article on National Health Insurance, Marthie Momberg warns that cynical remarks in the media and outright aggressive language by officials represent a perpetuation of power-play and oppression by people who consider themselves as the vanguard of the new order of liberty.
The African National Congress has released a rough outline of how it sees the proposed National Health Insurance scheme on its website. But the document is short on detail and has no timelines. The full document is below.
OPINION: The crisis that led to doctors downing their stethoscopes recently was not created in the last two months. This calamity was created over at least 18 months after almost a decade of neglect by former health Minister Manto Tshabalala Msimang.
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