Creator
Jessica Pitchford
Health Beat #39 | Inside SA's illegal weight-loss drug trade
South Africa faces a surge in illegal weight-loss drugs, as expensive GLP-1 medicines drive a black market for cheaper, untested versions. This trend raises serious health…
Here’s how to make drug addiction a health issue, not a criminal one
Experts say South Africa’s contradictory approach to drugs — treating addiction as both a disease and a crime — is fuelling a worsening crisis in places like Westbury, where…
Cutting: Why teens turn to self-harm when they don’t have words for their pain
For some teenagers, emotional pain manifests as deliberately cutting, burning, hitting, biting, scratching or picking at their skin
Court orders government, police to block vigilantes from two clinics — and put up warnings at entrances
The judgment complements a November ruling meant to stop groups such as Operation Dudula from blocking foreign nationals from entering government hospitals and clinics and…
Is the NHI channelling Operation Dudula’s healthcare blockades?
While groups like Operation Dudula flood the zone with fear, confusion and misinformation around healthcare access for foreign nationals, that space has been easy to muddy,…
WATCH | Weight loss drugs may work — but won’t end obesity on their own
In this month’s episode of our television show, Health Beat, we speak to two people who’ve used the weight loss drug Semaglutide
‘We’ve lost many sisters’: Why SA sex workers’ lives could be safer from 2024
South Africa’s justice department plans to scrap old laws that make it a crime to sell or buy sex. This could make life safer for workers because they should be able to report…