The first time I lit a cigarette and dragged the smoke into my lungs I was a 13-year-old schoolgirl with an idea that I must try something forbidden. Thirteen years later I was still smoking. I always knew that smoking can cause lung cancer but I felt immortal and thought: ‘Oh well, 50 is a […]
Statistics say that 26 000 children are physically and sexually abused every month. According to the South African National Council for Child Welfare (SANCCW), 60% of abuse cases take place within the child’s family and community. It’s time to become activists on behalf of children. As teachers, you are in a position to contribute to […]
World Tuberculosis (TB) Day on March 24 once again puts the focus on this widespread disease. In recent years TB has been forgotten, often overshadowed by the HIV/Aids epidemic. Yet there is a strong connection between the two: HIV/Aids has dramatically increased TB infections in South Africa. South Africa is ninth on the list of […]
‘Kyle didn’t stand a chance,” says Estelle Kunneke. Her 16-year-old son ran away from Ethokomala, a reform school in Kinross, Mpumalanga, on February 3. He has not been heard from since. More than a tale of one youngster’s mistakes, this is also a story of how he has been failed by all those tasked to […]
A prominent Aids dissident has attempted to use President Thabo Mbeki’s perceived ambivalence around HIV/Aids treatment to further the aims of the Rath Foundation, which promotes vitamins as an alternative to anti-retroviral drugs. But the presidency dismisses the out-of-hand claims that Mbeki instigated the creation of organisations which attack anti-retroviral drugs.
Controversial vitamin therapist Matthias Rath has blitzed Cape Town townships with pamphlets and posters attacking the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) as a spreader of ”disease and death among our people” and the Advertising Standards Authority as ”helping to protect drug industry monopolies”. It emerged this week that the South African National Civics Organisation in Khayelitsha has endorsed the pamphlet.
The first constitutional challenge to new health laws left dispensing doctors and the Department of Health each notching up a partial victory on Friday. The Constitutional Court said regulations that force doctors to get licences to dispense drugs are not unconstitutional, but sections that tried to limit the number of pharmacies in an area were declared ultra vires and invalid.
For two days next week, the battle over drugs pricing will move to the Constitutional Court as Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang takes on pharmacy groups. The Health Department will ask the country’s highest court for permission to appeal in a bid to overturn a Supreme Court of Appeal judgement, which threw out ”transparent pricing” regulations last year.
The Competition Tribunal last week approved the merger between Afrox Healthcare (Ahealth) and Bidco. This will shift a quarter of the private hospital market share into the hands of an empowerment consortium. The Mail & Guardian investigates the debilitating impact of cartels on the cost of private hospital treatment.
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/ 26 February 2005
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/197779/special_rep_icon_template.gif" align=left>The Treasury should not be congratulated on its R48-billion allocation to health because the R8-billion increase has not kept up with inflation or with the increase in health practitioners’ salaries, say health analysts. "You can have beautiful clinics, but if there is no one [motivated] to work in them, what is the point?"