Health

How brave nine-year-old narrowly missed falling through the welfare system’s cracks

Luxolo “Nana” Ntsantsa was left paralysed from the waist down after a gunman killed his mother and left him for dead in their small shack in Site C, Khayelitsha nearly a year ago.

Barbara Maregele

Feature | 15 June 2015

The scandal of South Africa’s sick miners

Human rights lawyers have been engaged for ten years in a bid to secure massive damages for former gold miners who suffer from silicosis and TB. As the case heads for the courts, the mining industry is scrambling to offer its own and much less comprehensive solution.

Pete Lewis

Analysis | 11 June 2015

Fireworks at AIDS conference

Benny Malakoane, MEC for Health in the Free State, came under fire while sitting in the audience at the opening of the 7th South African AIDS Conference in Durban on Tuesday evening. Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) chairperson, Nkhensani Mavasa, delivering one of the opening speeches, called for him to be dismissed.

GroundUp Staff

Brief | 10 June 2015

Iris House provides free, community-based care for special needs children

South Africa's first Children's Hospice and Palliative Care Association will be launched later this year, according to the founder of Iris House Children's Hospice Sue van der Linde.

Barbara Maregele

News | 9 June 2015

Where have all the medicines gone?

Drug shortages in South Africa’s health facilities have become a crisis. Today we report that Stanger Hospital and health facilities in Ilembe District KwaZulu-Natal are out of stock of over 200 products between them.

Ashleigh Furlong and Nathan Geffen

Feature | 6 June 2015

Needed: black bone marrow donors

South Africa needs black people to donate their bone marrow. According to the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) there are more than 67,000 donors and only 4,100 are black.

Thembela Ntongana

News | 5 June 2015

Women and addiction: a much neglected problem

Mother’s Day has come and gone with the usual emphasis on happy mothers, loving families and children bringing breakfast in bed to their moms. For many this picture is a good reflection of what happens at home. But for some mothers this picture is far from accurate.

Adrienne Dodds

Opinion | 1 June 2015

City spends hundreds of millions of rand on informal settlement sanitation: a response to the SJC

The latest in a string of articles by the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), disseminating inaccurate and misleading information, further warps the facts and the realities within which the City of Cape Town must operate. But then, the SJC never let the facts get in the way of the pretty graphics that they have begun to share widely with such gusto.

Ernest Sonnenberg

Opinion | 29 May 2015

“Not enough money allocated to sanitation,” say SJC protesters

Yesterday, about 150 members of the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) marched to the civic centre. They demanded “a detailed account” of hundreds of submissions to the City of Cape Town on the 2015/16 budget.

Bernard Chiguvare

Brief | 28 May 2015

Start HIV treatment sooner, study shows

It’s important to start treating people with HIV sooner rather than later, according to the findings of a large clinical study which could change treatment in many countries including South Africa.

Nathan Geffen

News | 27 May 2015

Lukewarm response to new toilets in Khayelitsha

Minister of Water Affairs and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane announced in Khayelitsha on Friday the launch of pilot projects of new mobile toilets. But residents’ reactions were somewhat sceptical.

Nombulelo Damba

News | 25 May 2015

We want service delivery, say Marikana residents

Garbage is piling up in Marikana informal settlement. Residents, concerned about their health and the squalor in which they are living, are calling on the City of Cape Town to begin providing services.

Nombulelo Damba

News | 13 May 2015

Presidency silent on sanitary pad promise

It has been four years since President Jacob Zuma promised that sanitary pads would be provided for poor women and girls in South Africa. But repeated attempts by GroundUp to find out what has been done suggest that his promise has not been kept.

Pharie Sefali

News | 12 May 2015

No toilets and not enough water in struggle hero’s birthplace

Residents of Slangspruit in Pietermaritzburg say they are used to the smell of faeces, because they have no toilets.

Ntombi Mbomvu

News | 12 May 2015

Sexologists battle over who is the real deal

Two sexology institutes in Gauteng are in conflict with one another over who is offering a legitimate services versus who is operating illegally. And experts in the field say they are both in the wrong.

Nombulelo Damba

News | 8 May 2015

Detainee tells of shocking conditions for awaiting trial prisoners

After numerous organisations wrote to the Department of Correctional Services, raising their concerns about the bad conditions in the awaiting trial section of Pollsmoor prison, GroundUp exclusively spoke to a detainee in that section, who says nothing has changed.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

Feature | 7 May 2015