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The Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Bhekisisa is one of only a few media outlets in the Global South specialising in solutions-based narrative features and analysis. We not only uncover problems but also critically evaluate the solutions meant to fix them. It’s an approach we also take with our opinion pieces.

What makes a good op-ed? What can I expect from the editing process? Who do I pitch a possible opinion piece to? Get the answers to all these questions along with some handy writing tips here before you make a submission.

Will PrEP mean fewer new HIV infections in Sub-Saharan Africa in the near future? Not exactly

Is the HIV prevention pill a ‘magic bullet’?

PrEP is not a magic bullet. But we won’t end the HIV epidemic without it.

Bending the curve: What a decade-long roll-out of the anti-HIV pill can teach the...

What can the roll-out of a two-monthly HIV prevention injection learn from how the daily anti-HIV pill was introduced? Create demand, make the jab easy to get hold of and ensure it’s not stigmatised, write Wawira Nyagah and Mitchell Warren.
community healthcare workers

Radical transformation begins with fixing how we fund healthcare in remote areas

Once slices of the healthcare funding pie are dished out to provinces, there is little control over how this money is spent to benefit the rural poor.
(Jessica Bordeau)

Why medical aids are putting the price of a safe delivery on some women’s...

When medical schemes and the law count conceiving as a pre-existing condition, pregnant women lose.

Life Esidimeni should have fast-tracked – not frozen – SA’s mental health plans

The Life Esidimeni tragedy was the worst possible outcome for a move away from psychiatric care, but well-managed community-based mental health care is still a proven way to treat people’s mental illnesses with dignity.
Medical student Inati Mcapazeli studies a chest x-ray at Cape Town’s Brooklyn Chest Hospital on World TB Day 2012.

Tackling TB: Three lessons the COVID-19 pandemic taught us

COVID-19 came with a lot of collateral damage that the world was unprepared for. Part of the pandemic ripple effect meant people weren’t able to access tuberculosis testing or treatment, derailing targets to end the disease. But there are also lessons to be learned along the way.
Done with hiding in the bathroom: Demelza Bush has come to terms with the fact that she is neither a man or a woman.

Genderqueer: Existing outside the binary

When Demelza Bush was a little girl, she knew she wasn't. And they weren't a boy either.
Early adopters: Malawi has already begun using HIV self-testing as part of some clinical trials.

The promise and peril of do-it-yourself HIV testing

One in two people living with HIV still aren’t on treatment, could DIY testing be the solution?

‘I’m a smoker — and I want stricter tobacco control’

Civil rights activist Koketso Moeti has been smoking for over 20 years. Yet she supports South Africa’s new Tobacco Bill, which bans indoor smoking, including vaping, in public buildings. Here’s why.

Catholic priest: Why it’s wrong to open our churches

Is it responsible to allow religious gatherings during level 3 lockdown? This church leader says no — there are safer ways to provide people with spiritual support during the COVID-19 epidemic.
Research shows that drug-resistant TB accounts for a quarter of the 10-million deaths that might be associated with antimicrobial resistance by 2020.

This kills more than 700 of us each day. Now, the UN wants to...

In a historic first, the UN just held a high-level meeting on TB. There was one on lifestyle diseases too. But did these sittings achieve anything?
Drinking four glasses of wine a day can increase your chances of getting breast cancer by about 50%.

Cancer and heart disease: Can alcohol help you or hurt you?

Drinking four glasses of wine a day can increase your chances of getting breast cancer by about 50%.
||tlaleng mofokeng

Pathologies of pleasure: What they don’t teach you in medical school

Tlaleng Mofokeng is a doctor, writer, radio and TV presenter as well as an internationally-renowned health activist. She’s made it her life work to educate people on sexual and reproductive health and rights and her first book is a primer on everything from anal sex to intersectionality.Read why medical school never prepared her for becoming ‘the sex doctor’ in this excerpt from her newly released first book, “Dr T: A Guide to Sexual Health and Pleasure.”

Disorganised documents: How bad record keeping will set back the NHI

The majority of South Africa’s public hospitals have a problem with tracking the costs of patient care, this study found. This poses a problem for the country’s plans for a National Health Insurance as hospitals could operate at a loss and face reimbursement challenges.

South African Aids council stands by national sex worker plan

Human rights and access to healthcare remain paramount in the country's response.
South Africa legalised abortion decades ago but a lack of information on where to get one and health workers willing to terminate pregnancies still stand between people and safe abortions.

Medical conscientious objectors who scupper abortions deny women their rights

Conscientious objectors who refuse to perform abortions or related services for moral reasons may have become a law unto themselves.