Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Jessica Pitchford

Creator

Jessica Pitchford

Complex organised crime networks are fuelling a health crisis that is getting worse and addiction treatment isn’t keeping up.

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…

The tattoos on Zandile Simelane’s arms tell a story that most people can’t read. Hidden beneath the delicate blue ink of flowers and butterflies, dull white scars rise, remnants of the time when cutting herself seemed like the only way to express how much she was hurting. (Bhekisisa)

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

What’s driving anti-immigrant healthcare blockades? Sharon Ekambaram from Lawyers for Human Rights says it’s everything from the sky-high cost of Zimbabwean passports and corruption to South Africa’s institutionalised xenophobia — and a growing global intolerance of migrants. (Bhekisisa team)
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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…

The high court has ruled that blocking foreigners from healthcare is unconstitutional. Photo: Bhekisisa
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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,…

Do not do: New research reaffirms that sugar is one of the biggest obstacles to weight loss – and health in general.

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

If sex work continues to be criminalised, sex workers will continue to be forced to work in unsafe, abusive and dangerous conditions. Photo: David Harrison
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‘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…