Long Form

Daniel Omar

3D-printed prosthetic limbs: The next revolution in medicine

The process could transform manufacturing and help the 30 million people worldwide in need of artificial limbs and braces.
From the informal market to booming business: Could this be the future of water?

Water in Ghana from pipe to packet: Is there a hidden cost to this...

In a country where pipes can stop short of reaching home, cheap sachets of water sold on the street could be an unlikely solution, but at what cost?

The dark smell of illness: One family’s struggle for news from inside the ICU

You can’t visit family members with COVID-19 in hospital. So how do you find out how they’re doing? Mia Malan from the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism documented one woman’s story.
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The long walk back to yourself: How this hospital revolutionised rural rehabilitation

Bhojana Mathunywa was attacked by four men for bag of tobacco. Now, slowly but surely, this team of rural therapists is helping him recover the everyday skills he lost. (Dylan Bush, Bhekisisa)

Cobras & cures: Why the world is running chronically low on snake antivenom

Millions will be bitten by venomous snakes each year and for many, antivenom will remain painfully out of reach. Here's why.
Killing two birds with one stone. In Kenya

What do a herd of goats, a few cattle, and a baby have in...

Here's how northwest Kenya gets nomadic families to health services.
Period tax: Although funding has allowed for the first round of free pad deliveries in KwaZulu-Natal

#FreeToBleed: Here’s why Mboweni’s announcement of free & tax-free pads matters

Choosing between eating & bleeding through your uniform has a cost. Take a look at the reality behind the budget in this one from our archives.
A high proportion of Egypt’s population is blind or visually impaired but this does not stop them playing football. The ball rattles as it moves

Football like you’ve never seen it: On the pitch with this blind soccer team

Blind football represents hope and belonging for Egypt's one million visually impaired.
Bitter pill to swallow: Bonolo Mafokeng* believes her uncle could still be alive if the sisters at the clinic dispensing ARVs had adopted a better attitude towards dispensing the life-saving drugs.

‘Health’ and ‘care’ play second fiddle to Free State bullying

The Free State health department has come under fire for a number of reasons. Bhekisisa visited the province ahead of elections to find out more.
Pernicious neglect: Frik Balanco died after he succumbed to ‘a hospital acquired bacterial infection’ that resulted in pneumonia.

‘It’s the Free State hospital that killed my husband, Frik’

Doctors say Dihlabeng hospital doesn't have the medicine and staff to help patients.
Rachel Daniel

‘I was married to a Boko Haram’: What happens when a victim returns to...

Eighty two of the Chibok school girls, kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria three years ago, have been released. But what now?
Many women mistakenly believe that mastectomy is the only or the safest way of dealing with their cancer.

‘Cancer I could deal with. Losing my breast I could not.’

For those with breast cancer, a mastectomy may seem like the best option. But Joanna Moorhead is glad she chose less extensive surgery.
Nongezile Sinkala walked 7km across hilly terrain and thick bush to get to the nearest taxi rank to take her sick grandson to the hospital.

‘God make us strong, I beg you, keep Luphumlo alive’

Mia Malan describes the arduous trek an Eastern Cape woman had to undertake to get medical attention for her sick grandson.

Breathing in a deadly dust: How a drop of blood can help

A new tool may help to keep workers who breathe in silica dust safe from silicosis — at less than R50 a prick.
South Sudanese refugee children in northern Uganda

Could this country be among the world’s best for refugees?

Many Ugandans were once refugees themselves. Now, they are 'paying back the good' and making their country one of the best in the world for refugees.
This is Simon Antindi

Meet the doctors: Take a look at this country’s first crop of homegrown physicians

Finally capping its own medics, the country must now retain them and coax them into rural areas.