Affordable Medical Aids

 

More ‘money wasted’ and there are lots of concerns over incomplete Free State drug treatment centre

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The Portfolio Committee on Social Development wants to have a meeting with the National Treasury and the Department of Public Works as to why a drug treatment centre in the Free State has not been completed.

In a statement the committee said the facility has been under construction for three years without any progress. This was despite funds having been allocated and made available to the province annually, as a conditional grant.

“This delay impacts negatively on the agreement of having at least one drug treatment centre in every province,” committee chairperson, Zoleka Capa said.

The committee received a shocking report from the Central Drug Authority (CDA) on how the use of drugs is escalating in communities, something which leads to crime and violence in communities.

“This has increased the committee’s belief in the fact that these drug treatment facilities in all provinces should be prioritised in order to deal with this scourge. The committee
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Here’s a view on what the 2019 budget means for healthcare consumers

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National Health Insurance (NHI) is critical to creating a quality functioning healthcare system for all South Africans and it is good to see that Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s Budget Speech covered areas such as increased funding for certain diseases and improved service delivery in the public sector.

Healthcare in South Africa can only work if the public and private sectors work in partnership – not one at the expense of the other. That is according to Damian McHugh, head of marketing at Momentum’s health solutions.

“By strengthening public health delivery, and with the private sector making sure that it is working towards a healthier South African healthcare sector by looking for opportunities to work with public entities, we can improve and safeguard the health of all South Africans,” says McHugh.

Mboweni unveiled several changes intended to improve the public health system and address funding for initiatives like the NHI.

Flat lining m
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Still shopping for a new medical aid? Here are 21 ways to cut your medical costs

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Money’s tight for everyone – whether you have a medical scheme, a hospital plan, or nothing. Here’s how to get the necessary treatment without breaking the bank.

Money’s tight for most people at the moment. Everyone’s cutting corners and cutting down on things that are thought not to be essential.

And what’s more medical schemes in SA are said to be five times more expensive than elsewhere in the world, when purchasing power is taken into consideration.

The cost of private medical care has been higher than the normal inflation rate for the last few years. A comprehensive medical scheme just for yourself could easily put you back between 10% and 20% of your income every month. Many people are scaling down to a hospital plan to save money, and many others are simply doing without a medical scheme of any kind – and hoping for the best.

“Your medical needs should be considered first and foremost,” says Johan van Tonder, independent medical scheme researcher. “I
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What a disgrace in our Hospitals, woman discharged from hospital, home in an ambulance (graphic photo’s)

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Mrs Kerns had been vomiting uncontrollably for three days by the time she eventually made her way to seek medical assistance.

On December 5 at 16:00 *Mrs Gracie Kerns arrived with her daughter, *Mrs Susan Coombs at Witbank Provincial Hospital.

Mrs Kerns had been vomiting uncontrollably for three days by the time she eventually made her way to seek medical assistance.

An ambulance had to be called to transport Mrs Kerns to the hospital due to her frailty.

Nearly exactly 12 hours after Mrs Kerns had arrived at Witbank Provincial Hospital, at approximately 04:00, she was finally able to see a doctor.

“The ambulance that took her to hospital was in a terrible state,” Mrs Coombs, Mrs Kerns’s daughter, explained; “the doors didn’t close. They’d apparently been kicked off of their hinges by a previous patient. The stretcher was also problematic as it wasn’t very manoeuvrable and lead to us having to shuffle my mother around the house to get her to
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Hard times lies ahead for the ANC’s Department of Health:- angry nurses says, No jobs, no vote

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“No jobs, no vote,” shouted disgruntled nurses who marched to the provincial health department in Pietermaritzburg.

Hundreds of nurses carried placards and handed over a memorandum demanding that unemployed nurses be employed by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health. Nurses from the Health and Other Service Personnel Trade Union of South Africa (HOSPERSA) were part of the march.

The marchers said there were 15,000 unemployed nurses in KZN and 40,000 vacancies for nurses nationwide, according to a “study”.

But when GroundUp asked the provincial chairperson of HOSPERSA, Thamsanqa Zondi, the source of these figures, he said the figures were estimates and should not be used by the media. He said the union did not have a copy of the study.

Last year nurses marched three times demanding that the health department prioritise their demands.

United Nurses Forum president Bhekithemba Gumbi said nothing had changed. Quoting the same figures, he said there was
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Grandson laments treatment at PE hospital – ‘Not one nurse to help him’

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Life St George’s Hospital in Port Elizabeth has launched an internal investigation after the grandson of one of its patients posted photos of his grandfather soaked in urine and blood with “not one nurse to help him”.

This was despite the hospital knowing the elderly man needed 24-hour care for which he was signed up for, Jason Gordon wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

His grandfather was blind and suffered from dementia.

“This is not the first time I have visited him after work to find something wrong. The first time they had inserted his drip incorrectly. It took more than 3 days for the swelling to go down,” Gordon wrote.

“This is not the kind of care I would expect when you pay so much for medical aid; this kind of thing should not be acceptable in any state or private hospital. You would expect people in the medical profession to be compassionate and want to make sure their patients are comfortable, not leaving them in an embarrassing and unhealthy s
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A tech company, Proteus, just launched a ‘smart’ cancer pills that track you with tiny sensors stamped into your medications

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A US digital medicine company called Proteus makes ‘smart pills’ embedded with sensors that tell your doctor when you’ve taken your medication. The pills also track activity levels.

Backed by big name investors like Novartis, Proteus debuted the first medication made with the technology – a form of the depression and schizophrenia drug Abilify – in 2017.

Now, Proteus is expanding into cancer.

Still, the research on whether the pills actually help patients take their medications when they should remains somewhat unclear.

Would a notification from your doctor as soon as you forget to take your medication help keep you on track?

A digital medicine company called Proteus is betting the answer is yes.

The Silicon Valley-based company makes what have been called “smart pills”: essentially, versions of regular medications embedded with a tiny sensor that can be tracked by a patch worn on a patient’s stomach.

Since debuting the first medication made with t
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This is the big one: Bosasa allegedly bribed Jacob Zuma with R300k a month

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It’s been reported that former Bosasa executive Angelo Agrizzi is saving his best state capture inquiry testimony until last. Jacob Zuma is next in the cross-hairs. If you’ve been engrossed by the sheer theatre of Angelo Agrizzi’s testimony to the state capture inquiry this week, we’ve got news for you: The best is yet to..
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Some researchers discover the brain cells that make pain unpleasant

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If you step on a tack, neurons in your brain will register two things: that there’s a piercing physical sensation in your foot, and that it’s not pleasant. Now, a team of scientists at Stanford University has identified a bundle of brain cells in mice responsible for the latter – that is, the negative emotions of pain.

Pain research has traditionally focused on the neurons and molecules at the frontline of pain perception — the cells in nerves that process stings, cuts, burns and the like — and ultimately convey a physical threat message. What Dr Grégory Scherrer, assistant professor of anesthesiology and of neurosurgery, and Dr Mark Schnitzer, associate professor of biology and of applied physics, are studying goes one step further. “We’re looking at what the brain makes of that information,” Scherrer said. “While painful stimuli are detected by nerves, this information doesn’t mean anything emotionally until it reaches the brain, so we set out to find
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There are so many complex reasons for South Africa’s organ donor shortage

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At any given time, there are around 4,300 people waiting for organ donations in South Africa. These patients usually need new livers, kidneys, lungs or hearts. But organ donors are in very short supply.

This isn’t unique to South Africa. Many countries around the world are unable to meet the demand for donor organs. There are a few exceptions, though. One example is Norway, where a surplus of deceased donor livers has been reported.

So what explains South Africa’s organ donor shortage?

Religious and cultural beliefs play a role, because they influence the decisions people make about the remains of their loved ones. Sometimes families prefer that a relative’s body remain whole and intact; in other cases it’s considered important to bury a person within a certain time frame. But attributing the shortages to these factors alone grossly oversimplifies the issue, as research has shown.

There are many complex elements that keep donor num
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South Africa needs stronger leadership and increased budgets in mental healthcare

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The psychiatric profession should play a greater role in advocating for patients’ rights and improving management of mental health in the public sector after a series of recent tragedies that highlighted the neglect of mental healthcare in South Africa.

Professor Bonga Chiliza, incoming South African Society of Psychiatrists (Sasop) president, says the deaths of 144 patients in the now-notorious Life Esidimeni tragedy; allegations of abuse and human rights violations at the Tower Psychiatric Hospital in the Eastern Cape; and the suicide of UCT Health Sciences Dean Prof Bongani Mayosi following his battle with depression all point to need for better management of public sector psychiatry

Therefore, the organisation will ramp up its lobbying for mental healthcare to be allocated an equitable share of the national health budget. Chiliza says Sasop would also be doing more to encourage medical students to specialise in psychiatry, in order to grow the numbers of qual
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New portable technology takes primary healthcare to the people

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Portable medical technology makes it possible to take primary healthcare to low-income populations that frequently have a disproportionate burden of ill health.

It allows mobile clinics and screening days to take healthcare services to schools and local communities that would ordinarily not have access.

Instead of expecting patients to travel to static clinics, they can be screened and diagnosed on the spot and receive preventive healthcare where they are, rather than incurring travel costs or having to take time off work. ”The South African medical environment is still in the early stages of adopting mobile solutions to preventive screening and healthcare.

“Screening for common health issues like loss of hearing or vision helps to avoid a heavier cost burden on constrained healthcare resources once the diagnosed conditions worsen,” says Dr Dirk Koekemoer, founder and CEO of eMoyo. “But this approach, when effectively managed through a collaboration betwe
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A change in birth options: What’s behind SA’s skyrocketing C-section rates?

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Almost one in four babies born at public hospitals come into the world via c-section but is it costing some women their lives?

For decades, Caesarean sections were a last resort for mothers and babies in distress. If you had access to this kind of procedure, you could count yourself among the world’s lucky.

At the dawn of the 21st century, rates of the procedure in almost all African regions save for the continent’s north dragged along at less than 5%, recently published research in The Lancetshows. Meanwhile, the continent was home to more than half of the 13 countries responsible for the majority of the world’s maternal deaths, World Health Organisation (WHO) data from the year 2000 shows.

At the same time, C-section rates in much of Asia and Eastern Europe hovered around 7%.

Almost 30-million babies will come into the world this year by Caesarean if 2015 figures are anything to go by — nearly double the number of infants delivered in this way alm
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These people are definitely ‘high as a kite’:- The Dagga Party wants to #HotboxTheHouse as it aims to contest elections

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The Dagga Party of South Africa is hoping to “#HotBoxTheHouse” as it prepares to contest this year’s elections and potentially have a say on cannabis legislation in Parliament, if it can raise the hefty R200 000 registration free.
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A cancer drug offers more affordable treatment for diabetic retinopathy

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Treatment for diabetic retinopathy can be expensive, especially in low and middle-income countries such as South Africa, but a recent doctoral study at Stellenbosch University (SU) found that a relatively cheap drug called bevacizumab could be effective.

“We found that injecting bevacizumab into the eyes could help treat diabetic eye disease and prevent blindness in people living in low and middle-income countries,” says Dr Jose Fernando Arevalo, chairperson of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Bayview Medical Center in the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore in America.

Aevalo, who is also the president of the Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology, obtained his doctorate in ophthalmology at the second ceremony of SU’s December graduation.

He says the rapid increase in the prevalence of diabetes means that by 2040 more people will be at risk of developing diabetic eye disease and therefore less ex
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