Threads
Home Features Page 6

Features

Post-partum pregnancy can be prevented through correct contraceptive use.

SA’s midwives chart a new course

Scandinavian expertise is helping to train top nurses in how to handle difficult pregnancies.
||||

Kids are having sex. We need to help teen moms, not punish them

Otlotleng Moolikwe fell pregnant after having sex with her boyfriend when she was 13 years old. And she’s not the only one. One in six South African teenagers between 15 and 19 years old have had a child. Here’s how to help them stay in school.
Clinical associates such as Arthur Setlhapelo can do basic procedures

Healthcare heroes heal the system

Clinical associates are changing the medical sector by freeing up doctors to do more.
A mother delivers via C-section in Mozambique. In South Africa

A changing birth: What’s behind SA’s skyrocketing c-section rates?

Almost one in four babies born at public hospitals come into the world via c-section but is it costing some women their lives?
Cataract surgery will become part of Madagascar's universal healthcare programme.

Truth about cataracts is plain to see: They can be treated

More developing countries are offering sight-saving surgery in their public health systems, but specialist eye surgeons are in short supply.
Ellena Baziliyo and her daughters.

Malawi drought: “I’m pregnant, but I’ve got nothing to eat.”

Some rain has fallen yet crop yields are still expected to be poor, but aid programmes have opened the door to a more sustainable future.
Mobile tech: A malaria-fighting secret weapon for Africa?

Let’s talk about sex, baby – help is just an SMS away for young...

​Nearly 36 000 young Mozambicans have signed up for SMS-based health counselling but will the new technology curb HIV infections?
|

SA’s moonlight sonata: The illegal cash cow draining specialist care at state hospitals

Specialist doctors at many state facilities aren’t showing up to work despite earning millions of rands a year in taxpayer money. The consequences for patient health can be devastating but not everyone agrees on the solutions.

Doctors pass the scalpel to nurses in the quest for safer births

A doctor shortage in war-torn Mozambique paved the way for a new breed of surgeons that have slashed deaths among new mothers.In Caia, a...
Located along one of Southern Africa's main transport corridors

‘I am the same as them’ – peer educators take sex workers’ health in...

Healthcare facilities are working to ensure migrant workers are never far from care.
Zimbabwean doctors went on strike in February for more money and more posts. In 2008

How to fund a failing health system

Could Zimbabwe's new Health Development Fund rescue the country's cash-strapped clinics and hospitals?
Young people seeking sexual healthcare often shy away from clinics because of nurses' attitudes towards them. Virtual reality could help to change that.

Virtual reality and SA’s quest for happier nurses

South Africa's public health nurses are infamous for having bad attitudes. Could a pair of goggles help them change their ways?
Vicious circle: Battered women's distress tends to make them more prone to risky sexual behaviour.

Abused women in violent spiral

Situations can get worse for women who are battered by their intimate partners: research now shows they are at higher risk of contracting HIV.

“I thought it’s just what fathers do.” How sex ed can tackle child abuse

Thousands of children are abused by someone close to them but are unable to report it, because they’re either too scared or don’t realise they’re being abused. Here’s how training teachers to provide proper sex education can help them.

Seaside towns swallowed by sand: Somalians battle with climate change

Strong winds, trees being cut down and drought drive sand to pile up and swallow the houses of the ancient seaside town Hobyo, Somalia. Will promises to green the desert save families who have been forced to move before?
Abortions have been legal in South Africa for over 20 years

‘They made me feel like a murderer’: Stigma endangers women seeking legal abortions

Bontle Mabe turned to a loan shark to fund her abortion after she was turned away for five days in a row at her local clinic.