Health

 

Steve Biko-hospitaal – Meeste hysers buite werking

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Die meeste hysers in die Steve Biko Akademiese hospitaal in Pretoria is reeds twee weke lank stukkend.

Talle pasiënte kan nie sekere prosedures ondergaan of dokters besoek nie.

Dié wat te siek of swak is om self by die trappe op te loop, sit en wag glo daagliks in die hospitaal se ontvangsgebied om kans te kry om ’n hyser te gebruik.

Prince Hamnca, woordvoerder van die Gautengse departement van gesondheid, sê op 3 September was die probleem op sy ergste, maar ’n kontrakteur werk sedertdien om die hysers te herstel.

“ ’n Aantal plekke in die hospitaal is hierdeur geraak, maar ons prioritiseer pasiëntsorg,” sê Hamnca.

Die departement het pasiënte en hul families om verskoning gevra vir die ongerief.

* Dinsdag is die 40ste herdenking van die moord op die struggleheld Steve Biko, na wie die hospitaal vernoem is.

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#InnovationMonth: How tech is transforming healthcare

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#InnovationMonth: How tech is transforming healthcare
We're human. We're programmed for instant gratification. Using this principle, Discovery Health has built its very successful Vitality programme, which is a blueprint for other rewards schemes, not only in healthcare, but other sectors too.
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“Fake Food is Fake News” – Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi

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Eight months after it began, South Africa’s listeriosis outbreak – the largest the world had ever seen – is officially over. But the nation’s alleged spate of “fake food”? Well, that may have been more hype than fact, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed at a Pretoria press conference on Monday.

The foodborne bacteria, which can thrive in cold meats and unpasteurised dairy products, had claimed at least 218 lives as of July, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases statistics (NICD). The NICD eventually discovered the bug at 158 factories, all but nine of which were visited by health inspectors. Ultimately, more than 12,000 tons of food were recalled and destroyed, Motsoaledi said.

Looking for a affordable Medical Aid or Hospital Plan, just click here Medical Aid or just send your Name, surname, age and email address to 082 738 55
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Waarskuwing rondom kodeïen

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Die SA Aptekers Vereniging het die publiek gewaarsku teen die misbruik van medisyne.

Die misbruik van oor-die-toonbank en voorgeskrewe medisyne is die oorsaak van verskeie gesondheidsprobleme.

Verkeerde gebruik van veral kodeïen-bevattende medisyne kan lei tot verslawing en selfs tot dwelmweerstandige siektes.

Die SAAV het die publiek versoek om seker te maak dat medikasie korrek gebruik word soos voorgeskryf om sodoende komplikasies te voorkom weens die misbruik daarvan.

Kodeïen verslawing kan lei tot aanvalle, lewer- en nierskade, depressie, angstigheid en selfs dood.

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Recruitment of mental healthcare practitioners in EC – R10m

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In a bid to address mental healthcare in the Eastern Cape Health Department, the ministry has announced that a budget of R10m has been set aside to recruit health practitioners.

“The plan includes recruitment of mental healthcare practitioners and expanding scope of mental health service providers to include community-based mental healthcare programme.

Looking for a affordable Medical Aid or Hospital Plan, just click here Medical Aid or just send your Name, surname, age and email address to 082 738 5586

“A budget of R10m has been budgeted for recruitment of mental healthcare practitioners for this financial year. The appointments will be made before the end of the current financial year,” said the provincial Health MEC Helen Sauls-August.

For the current financial year, the department said it will focus on recruiting psychologists
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Oscar ‘doing well’ after night in hospital

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Oscar is doing well under the circumstances, his father Henke Pistorius says.

The Paralympic athlete was kept in Kalafong Hospital in Atteridgeville, Pretoria overnight for observation after experiencing chest pains on Thursday morning.

“He has been discharged and is back in the facility,” Logan Maistry, spokesperson for the department of correctional services, told AFP.

Henke told YOU Oscar had previously had “bad colds” and it was not clear whether this was a reason for the severe pains in his chest.

Several tests have been performed on Oscar since Thursday and “all the tests were negative”, said Henke.

The 30-year-old is serving a six-year prison sentence for the murder of his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in February 2013.

Oscar has been behind bars for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, since July 6 last year. He argued that he thought she was an intruder.

He was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru II prison to the Atteridgeville priso
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Aaron Motsoaledi – The outbreak of listeriosis is over

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Grocery stores have been given the green light to once again stock processed meat on shelves and pack them in lunch boxes. This comes almost six months after polony and other ready-to-eat processed meats were declared no-go areas by the Department of Health.

“A team of World Health Organisation (WHO) international and local experts [have] agreed that because no cases of listeriosis due to the outbreak strain have been identified since the first week of June 2018 and that over the last two months the incidence rate of laboratory-confirmed listeriosis cases has dropped to pre-outbreak levels, the outbreak of listeriosis is over,” said Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi.

While processed meats were officially given the clear at a media briefing on Monday, Motsoaledi warned the public that listeria is still a reality.

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The Private healthcare industry needs to change

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The “startling costs” of South African private healthcare is at the heart of the Competition Commission’s Health Market Inquiry (HMI) draft report released in July. While cost is a key theme, the report also describes a sector lacking the vital force of authentic, robust competition.

Currently, the South African private healthcare sector is an opaque system dominated by a small handful of players. Members pay for medical scheme cover, and accept that they will also have to pay costs out of their own pockets.

Looking for a affordable Medical Aid or Hospital Plan, just click here Medical Aid or just send your Name, surname, age and email address to 082 738 5586

The common refrain of the medical aid will pay is one that is inherently false. It is not the medical aid that pays, but the member. “The fact that so many people cling to this erro
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Would you test for HIV in your living room?

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It starts with a swab but does it end with a diagnosis? Why the trickiest part of DIY HIV testing happens after the test

The trick, says Ann Moore as she pulls the small white stick from the plastic packaging, is not just to swab the gums but to scrape them.

The doctor sticks the rod under her lip and drags it first along one side of her gums, then the other.

“You don’t want saliva. You want the cells – the antibodies.”

She places the stick into a tube of clear liquid and waits. One line would mean she is HIV negative; two, HIV positive.

In 2013, the United Nations set the world an ambitious target of “90-90-90”: the idea was that, by 2020, 90% of all HIV-infected people would know their status, 90% of those diagnosed with HIV would be on antiretrovirals, and 90% of people receiving treatment would be virally suppressed.

Just three years away from the goal date, and with only 65% of South Africa’s 6.8-million people living with HIV diagn
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Anger as KZN hospital sends child home with gaping wound

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A child is back in a KwaZulu-Natal hospital after being discharged with a gaping bleeding wound‚ forcing his aunt to turn to Twitter to demand help.

But the health department disputes the version of events.

The 8-year-old boy was discharged from Madadeni hospital in Newcastle on Monday with an open wound‚ following an appendix operation.

His aunt‚ Gabi Manana‚ asked her friend to tweet the pictures of the child’s festering incision without identifying him.

Manana said: “I was looking for help‚ that is why I put that thing on Twitter.”

The tweet asked national health department officials for help.

The boy was in too much pain to walk on Monday‚ said Manana.

People who viewed the tweet were worried the large uncovered wound could become septic.

On Monday night‚ Health Department spokesman Joe Maila responded to the tweet saying he had called Kwazulu-Natal health officials.

They called the child’s aunt on Monday night.

On Tuesda
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Medical aids spying on doctors with hidden cameras – High Court claim

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The National Healthcare Professionals Association of South Africa has filed papers in the Pretoria High Court accusing 19 medical aid schemes of spying on doctors and sneaking hidden cameras into their consulting rooms.

The Sunday Times reported that medical aids are also allegedly holding back payments to doctors due to unproven misconduct.

The association – formed in October 2016 – has 320 members around South Africa, of which 65 are part of the court application.

Many medical aids will oppose the application and deny any wrongdoing, stating that fraud and false claims amount to millions of rand each year and were on the rise.

The lawsuit specifically named Discovery, stating that the scheme has sent spies and private investigators with concealed video cameras and recording equipment into private consultation rooms without consent.

According to the association, this is unlawful as it infringes on the doctor-patient relationship, and the doctor’s
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Probe exonerates Livingstone Hospital in death and maggots row

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Livingstone Hospital investigations have found that nobody can be held liable for two shocking incidents in which a patient fell to his death from the fifth floor and maggots hatched in the wound of another.

But the family of Zakes Mbeki, 29, who fell from the fifth story of the hospital early on Christmas morning, after he was admitted forseizures, want an inquest magistrate to decide who was responsible.

Clint Morris, whose leg wound became infested with maggots after he allegedly begged nurses for days to change his surgical dressings, has vowed to ensure that the hospital admits to wrongdoing.Morris, 40, had been injured in a scooter accident in December.

Eastern Cape health department superintendent-general Dr Thobile Mbengashe ordered an investigation into why maggots had hatched in Morris’s wound.

Provincial health department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said investigators had concluded in both cases that nobody could be held responsible.

He said it w
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Medical Aid Fraud:- Audiologist convicted of 259 counts

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Earlier this month, Wandile Theophilus Mashego, an audiologist and speech therapist practising in Pretoria, was found guilty of 259 counts of medical aid fraud and one count for contravening Section 66 of the Medical Schemes Act.

The case was brought against him by Bonitas Medical Fund after it was discovered he had been submitting fraudulent claims on behalf of members over a period of two years – from 2014 to 2015.

A soon to be identified ‘runner’ provided details of Bonitas Medical Fund members to Mashego, who then billed Bonitas fraudulently, for ‘services’ to these members.

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Mashego pleaded guilty under Section 105A of the Criminal Procedure Act 77 of 1951 and was sentence
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A New Healthcare Plan promises to overhaul South Africa’s massively skewed system

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Since 1994 South Africa has invested substantial resources in healthcare services. As a result, it’s has made significant health gains. For example, nearly 4-million people get HIV treatment and mother-to-child transmission has nearly been eliminated.

Service delivery has also been significantly expanded to more than 4000 health facilities. And there’s been a large increase in the number of healthcare professionals.

But health care needs aren’t static. For example, non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension are now responsible for more deaths than HIV and TB combined. And in some instances successes have created challenges. For example, the expansion of HIV treatment has meant that there’s now a large cohort of chronic patients requiring ongoing care. In addition, the reality of a largely youthful population requires interventions so that health gains aren’t lost.

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Is SA’s healthcare getting better?

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Globally, noncommunicable diseases were responsible for 70% of deaths in 2015, up from 60% in 2000. Ischaemic heart disease was the leading cause of death accounting for 8.8 million deaths in 2015, followed by stroke (6.2 million deaths) and lower respiratory infections (3.2 million deaths).

Communicable (infectious) diseases, on the other hand, were the cause of 12 million deaths worldwide in 2015 (in total), especially in low-income countries. These diseases include lower respiratory tract infections, diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

In South Africa, the number of deaths recorded in 2015 totalled 460,236 (compared to over one million births), indicating a 3% decline in deaths processed between 2015 and 2014. The majority of deaths were due to noncommunicable diseases (55.5% in 2015), an increase from 42.9% in 2005.

Interestingly, when compared to the global situation, the leading cause of natural deaths in South Africa in 2015 was t
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