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Opinion

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.

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Critical care: A local clinic is being built in Mvezo

Too much stick, not enough carrot

The state’s proposed certificate of need will not address inequities in rural healthcare.
Abandoned: The closure of the GF Jooste hospital has left the community in the lurch

The helpless have lost a lifeline

GF Jooste Hospital was a beacon of hope. It should have been renovated, not closed.
An open letter to ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe

We should be allies, not enemies, Gwede Mantashe

An open letter to ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe.
Educated girls have children later in life and are less likely to die during childbirth.

Education is the foundation for young girls’ future

Along with better access to health services and reducing child marriage, education can save many lives.
A drug could save the lives of premature babies

Yay for SA’s child health policies, nay for outcomes

This week holds the opportunity for us to show that we are serious about having a world where no child is born to die.

Why medical aids are so expensive

Greater collaboration and sharing of information between stakeholders will lead to reductions in costs.
Where will newly qualified doctors go if provinces are being told to scale back staff under budget pressures?

Exhausted doctors endanger health

Medical interns are leading the battle to reduce the dangerously overlong working hours that compromise the safety of patients.
Outspoken advocate: In 2007 Galip Asvat

Men are also ‘corrective rape’ victims

Many men, thanks to social stigmas, are ashamed to report sexual hate crimes – but they are almost as common as they are against lesbians.
French scientists have singled out a mechanism that spontaneously 'cured' two people of HIV

Can we end Aids in Africa?

While much has been done to end Aids in Africa, more work by governments is necessary to move forward, particularly in SA.
Depression and anxiety are common amongst TB patients and a UCT study says counselling is needed to keep sufferers on treatment.

Collective will can curb TB epidemic

Widespread tuberculosis awareness campaigns can rein in its increasing transmission rates.
Draft national health department guidelines will look to balance a doctor or nurse's right recuse themselves from performing abortions with a person's right to choose.

Preventative care will lower costs

Better-quality primary healthcare would result in lower medical aid premiums.
All sectors in society need to act to stop gender based violence say Sonke Gender Justice Network as they remember Reeva Steenkamp and Anene Booysen.

This Valentine’s Day don’t ignore the screams next door

All sectors in society need to act to stop gender based violence say Sonke Gender Justice as they remember Reeva Steenkamp and Anene Booysen.
“We did not identify any source of funding. We have just identified several methods of financing the NHI

NHI: Let’s talk about this revolution

Minister, please sit down with the private health sector before the NHI has us paying more but getting less, writes Dr Chris Archer.
Would you betray your partner in crime if it meant you could avoid jail? Here's how this mentality can push up the price of medicines.

Physician, don’t fool yourself – Motsoaledi replies to NHI criticism

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi describes Dr Chris Archer's criticism of the national health insurance as ignorant at best.
The country's largest HIV lobby group

Rape, murder and indifference

The government must stop paying mere lip service to rooting out gender-based violence.
A woman and her children in a village in Niger. A child born in 1960 had an 18% chance of dying before his or her fifth birthday. Today

100-million young lives saved by aid

Aid may often be criticised, but it works, says the Gates Foundation.