Articles

Finance minister Pravin Gordhan’s "careful control of the wage Bill" will impact negatively on health service delivery, says a health economist.

A woman’s chance of being killed in the Eastern Cape is almost double what it is in the country as a whole and about half as likely in Limpopo as in the rest of South Africa, results from the South African Medical Research Council’s fourth survey on femicide, reveal.

The way in which Gauteng’s social development department has treated nonprofits’ funding this year reminds, to some extent, of the provincial health department’s conduct in the Life Esidimeni saga. Lisa Vetten writes why it’s important that government’s decision-makers be held accountable.

Many medical schemes rely on the ignorance of their members, who buy more expensive cover than they may need, for their very survival.

The major backer of the lenacapavir roll-out is assuring nervous researchers that they will keep their part of funding promises. It’s a good economic investment, says the Fund’s Peter Sands, into a game-changing drug that could save millions of lives.

Social development budgets in Gauteng have been steadily declining, from R2.13-billion in 2022/2023 to R1.9-billion this year. Non-profit organisations say funding they’ve relied on for years is halted without adequate explanation, leaving some of them with no option but to close, and residents with no alternative care.

A study has found that child-focused interventions have significantly reduced HIV-infection rates in children under the age of five.

On 20 January, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the new US president — for the second time. An international HIV expert says a Trump administration will question South Africa’s decades-long partnership with the US government’s Aids fund, Pepfar.

With a new donor on board, Bhekisisa will be covering the continent's health issues at source – their new website launches today!

On Wednesday, Parliament’s newly appointed portfolio committee on health sat to discuss the proposed new Tobacco Bill for the first time since the government of national unity was formed. In 2021, more than a quarter of South Africans older than 15 used tobacco. We break down three tactics Big Tobacco uses to stall the Bill’s approval.

With just nine cases of the virus so far this year – in Pakistan and Afghanistan – the WHO is confident the battle against polio is nearly won.

On 22 August South Africa’s second — and highly controversial — presidential health compact was signed by the government and various sectors. The second compact is controversial because prominent organisations that served on the steering committee of the drafting of the first compact refused to sign it.

An inquest has found that Gauteng’s former health MEC, Qedani Mahlangu, and former head of mental health, Makgabo Manamela, can be held responsible for the death of Christine Nxumalo’s sister, Virginia Machpelah. Nxumalo was one of the first Life Esidimeni family members who spoke out about the death of a loved one. But it came at a devastatingly high cost. Here’s why.

Our Health Beat team takes you on a tour of some Gauteng hospital success stories — from an NHI-like project, the Chiawelo Community Practice in Soweto, to the lifesaving cardiothoracic surgery unit at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital.

Climate change is affecting the way in which we’re producing food and how polluted the water we drink and the air we breathe are, but only about one in three governments pointed out the impact of climate change on their citizens’ health in their yearly United Nations Debate statements last year.

The world has 18 months left — until the end of 2025 — to reach targets countries like South Africa signed up to in 2021. So where’s SA at? That’s tricky to answer, because the country uses four different ways to track this — and the numbers are not the same. We break down which set of data the health department uses to report to UNAids and what the other sets are for.