Treatment

 

Staatsklinieke op Upington se krag in snikhete afgesny weens wanbetaling, medisyne moet dringend verskuif word

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Medisyne in staatsklinieke op Upington wat glo na koeler bergplekke verskuif moes word omdat hul krag in die snikhete afgesny is, mors geld en lei tot swak dienslewering.

Só sê Andrew Louw, Noord-Kaapse DA-leier, wat aan Fufe Makatong, die LUR vir gesondheid, geskryf het om te versoek dat die departement sy elektrisiteitsrekeninge betyds betaal.

“Die departement het uitstaande skuld by die Dawid Kruiper-munisipaliteit. Die kragtoevoer is dus op 1 Oktober in die Paballelo- en Straussburg-klinieke afgeskakel.

“Die gevolg was dat immuniteitsmedikasie ter waarde van R140 000 na ’n ander koeler plek met elektrisiteit verskuif moes word.

“Dit beteken die suster moet op eie koste na die bergplek ry om die medisyne te gaan haal. Dit neem baie tyd in beslag en mense moet in lang rye wag.

“Dit kan onuithoudbaar in temperature tussen 31 °C en 38 °C word. Klinieke kan nie sonder elektrisiteit funksioneer nie. Dit is ondenkbaar dat diagnoses in die donk
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The NHI debate is stuck in the weeds

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The National Health Insurance (NHI) is not a radical shift to dismantle a functioning system, but an opportunity to review two poorly functioning ones.

The public sector sees very high volumes of patients but gives them bad service and produces very poor outcomes. The private sector is modelled on low volume, high cost care – it uses its huge quantities of resources badly, to service very few people.

As the Health Market Inquiry (HMI) report makes clear, the large commercial medical schemes are resisting needed reforms that with better productivity would lead to the convergence of the two systems. In particular, they persist with an outdated tariff system that pays for services not outcomes and doesn’t support team-based delivery models. This is probably because it threatens their claim payment and ‘managed care’ role that justifies a very high income. This strategy is counterproductive for their members.

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The National Health Insurance: Running Before Crawling – The need for objective reassessment of the pilot phase

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In Part I of the series on health reform and the draft National Health Insurance Bill (NHI Bill), the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CFCR) argued that considering the anticipated costs of the NHI and lack of crucial detail, South Africa needs to urgently assess alternative models to address the healthcare crisis. In Part II, the CFCR assesses the lack of information on the results of the NHI pilot phase, which is supposed to inform the further roll-out of the NHI.

The NHI Bill aims to revolutionise healthcare provision in South Africa by replacing the current two-tiered healthcare financing with the establishment of the NHI fund, which will be the single purchaser and financier of the population’s personal health services. The NHI, according to the NHI Bill, is envisioned to be rolled out in three phases spanning over 14 years, with the first phase extending from 2012 to 2017. The second phase is accordingly from 2017 to 2022. The final phase is from 2022 to 20
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The Showdown at the UN: SA takes on the US for cheaper drugs

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When the US went to bat for Big Pharma in the fight against this killer disease, South Africa wasn’t having any of it. Here’s what happened next.

Graveyard cough, white plague, consumption. A killer by any name, TB has stalked the human race for aeons, lurking in crowded tenements or following miners deep underground, hanging in the air of our hospitals.

Always there, yet rarely spoken.

Today, it kills more people than HIV and malaria combined, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reports. In South Africa, Statistics South Africa’s latest data shows TB remains the leading cause of non-violent deaths.

Yet it took the United Nations 73 years to call a meeting on TB — and only because a very excitable South African health minister agitated enough for it.

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Tekort aan 45 000 verpleërs in Suid-Afrika

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Die 2 200 nuwe aanstellings van mediese personeel wat belowe is deur pres. Cyril Ramaphosa is welkom, maar ’n druppel aan die emmer in die lig van die omvang van die probleme in die departement van gesondheid.

Volgens die verpleegvakbond Denosa is daar net wat verpleërs betref ’n tekort aan 45 000 poste in die land.

“Dit (die aankondiging) is welkome verligting, maar dit gaan definitief nie effektief wees in ag genome die getal vakatures nie,” sê Sibongiseni Delihlazo, Denosa-woordvoerder.

“Navorsing toon dat daar ’n tekort van 45 000 verpleërs oor die land heen is, so jy kan jouself net indink watter impak dit maar sal hê as dié getal poste oor die land versprei word.”

Ramaphosa het in die aankondiging van sy stimuluspakket vir Suid-Afrika se ekonomie gesê dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, minister van gesondheid, sal onmiddellik 2 200 mediese poste – veral van verpleegkundiges – vul.

Geld word ook onmiddellik beskikbaar gestel om beddens en
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ATM pharmacy launches in Bloemfontein (Free State)

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Twin City Mall in Bloemfontein is the newest site for the innovative ATM pharmacy that gives patients with chronic illnesses repeat medication in under five minutes.

The Pharmacy Dispensing Unit (PDU) was unveiled on 25 September, during Pharmacy Month, at the central community shopping centre, which is on main transport routes and is open for extended hours including weekends and public holidays. The first such dispensing unit was launched in Alexandra in Gauteng in March this year.

The Pharmacy Dispensing Unit works like an ATM for medication, with Skype-like audio-visual interaction between patient and a remotely located tele-pharmacy contact centre. Patients are able to talk to pharmacists in a call centre 400km away in Centurion, Gauteng – showcasing the benefits of tele-pharmacy to patients in rural and outlying areas. This allows patients to access accurate medicine information and counselling from qualified pharmacy staff.

The dispensing data is hosted
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Why is alcohol withdrawal so hard on some people, the genes may hold the answer

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Some heavy drinkers suffer intense withdrawal symptoms when they try to stop drinking – some, less so. A new Yale-led international study of individuals with alcohol dependence has identified gene variants that may help explain why “detox” from alcohol is particularly difficult for some people.

The researchers reported their findings on 25 September in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, the official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism.

“Alcohol takes more lives in the United States and South Africa every year than opioids, but there are few effective treatments to help people who have an alcohol use disorder,” said Andrew H. Smith, lead author of the study and a research affiliate in the laboratory of senior author Joel Gelernter, Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Genetics and of Neuroscience. “For people who experience intense withdrawal symptoms, that’s one more barrier they have to face while
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Goedkoop generiese antiretrovirale middels wat deur die staat versprei word veroorsaak kommerwekkende newe-effekte

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Een van die generiese antiretrovirale middels (ARM’s) wat deur Sonke Pharmaceuticals namens die staat versprei word, veroorsaak kommerwekkende newe-effekte.

Só sê Sello Mokhalipi, voorsitter van die Positive Action Campaign (PAC) in die Vrystaat, ná ’n besoek Donderdagoggend aan die Bloemspruit-kliniek buite Bloemfontein.

Tans gebruik dié pasiënte Abacavir vir babas. Dit help nie. Inteendeel, dit veroorsaak die ontwikkeling van weerstandigheid by MIV-pasiënte.

Die PAC het onderhoude met verskeie pasiënte gevoer en ook met die fakulteitsbestuurder vergader.

Sonke Atenef-tablette veroorsaak na bewering die ontwikkeling van weerstandigheid teen ARM’s, asook vergrote borste en voortdurende menstruasie by vroue.

“Die newe-effekte word deur goedkoop medikasie van ’n maatskappy met die naam ‘Sonke’ veroorsaak,” sê Mokhalipi.

Pasiënte wat ARM’s vir die eerste keer neem en wat nie nierprobleme het nie, word Sonke Atenef toegedien om
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Mental health to be ‘outsourced’ in Eastern Cape

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The Eastern Cape department of health has published its R120-million tender to outsource chronic mental healthcare in the province – and has put emphasis on the reintegration of mental health patients in their communities.

Apart from chronic care‚ service providers have also been asked to tender for community-based initiatives to achieve this.

Seven-hundred adult and 180 paediatric mental health patients are now being cared for in Life Esidimeni centres in Kirkwood and Bethelsdorp.

The tender documents show that the department is also seeking to distribute beds for chronic mental health patients across the province if possible.

Long-term patients are currently housed at the 700-bed Life Esidimeni Kirkwood facility and the 180 children at Life Esidimeni’s Algoa Frail Care Centre in Bethelsdorp.

Provincial health spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha declined to elaborate on any of the information in the tender documents‚ saying this would compromise the
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Looking at some South Africa hospital horrors

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South Africa´s recent spate of hospital horror stories and the sharp rise in cases of medical negligence are disturbing with medical negligence claims against provincial the country´s Health Departments increasing by around 25 per cent per year between 2011 and 2016.

This is according to Kirstie Haslam, partner at DSC Attorneys who says that the Gauteng Department of Health, (South Africa´s wealthiest province) receives a particularly staggering number of negligence claims each year. Since January 2015, it has been forced to pay out more than R1.017 billion ($US74 million) to settle 185 medical negligence claims.

“Deteriorating conditions in state hospitals, as well as incompetence and gross negligence on the part of staff members, are at the root of these claims – the vast majority of which were ruled in favour of the plaintiffs,” Haslam explains.

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It’s now 90 years ago that Penicillin was discovered – and despite resistance, the future looks good for antibiotics

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When the NHS turned 70 this year, I was reminded of another anniversary which has had an enormous impact on healthcare over many years. Penicillin is 90 this year.

Discovered in September 1928 by Alexander Fleming, it was first used as a cure when George Paine treated eye infections with it in 1930. A method for mass production was devised by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain in 1940, and it was first mass produced in 1942, with half of that total supply used for one patient being treated for streptococcal septicaemia.

In 1944, 2.3m doses were produced in time for the Normandy landings of World War II. And it was then that the miracle of penicillin became clear. Soldiers who had previously died from septicaemia were surviving.

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CANCER:- Micorocoil localisation in treating early-stage lung cancer

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A breakthrough minimally invasive surgery technique, microcoil localisation, allows doctors to pinpoint and remove tiny nodules in early-stage lung cancer without damaging additional healthy tissue.

“Rather than cutting out an entire lobe, or potentially even an entire lung, we can just take out a small bit of tissue,” said Dr Jason Lempel, a thoracic radiologist at Cleveland Clinic in the United States. “We’re able to treat patients with early-stage lung cancers quickly and thus decrease the chance of the cancer spreading.”

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Cleveland Clinic is one of a handful of medical centre to offer the surgery. A review of the team’s first 20 cases has revealed a 100% success rate in retr
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New drug approved:- Cipla’s new triple-combination antiretroviral drug approved

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The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has approved Cipla’s latest first-line triple-combination antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV.

The new combination medicine commonly referred to as TLD, is a combination of tenofovir (TDF), lamivudine (3TC) and dolutegravir (DTG).

In future, TLD will be manufactured at Cipla’s facilities in Durban and Uganda, reinforcing Cipla’s commitment to produce medicines in Africa for Africa and ensuring more affordable treatment for patients.

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Head of Manufacturing for Cipla South Africa, Ajay Kumar Pal, said the reason for the new formulation complexity related to the three different processes required for the three active pharm
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Will artificial intelligence change the face of patient care? The question remains … How!!

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There is no doubt that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will change the way healthcare is managed and delivered, particularly in helping patients in tangible and life-saving ways.

A recent Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) report found that the potential for both AI and robotics in healthcare is vast and that they are increasingly becoming immersed in the modern healthcare system. They allow for more seamless treatments, better decision making for doctor and patient alike, more effective diagnoses and even early detection of diseases.

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Dispensing medication

“A superb example of how AI is changing the face of healthcare on the ground level is in the prescr
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Faking an Illness:- This is how doctors can spot it!

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It’s one thing to cough and sniff in front of your parents or boss, but you need to realise that it’s a completely different matter to fake an illness to an actual doctor.

Most of us have faked a cough and sniffle to get out of going to school or work for a day. However, it usually does not involve lying to a doctor and faking symptoms to legitimize your sick leave.

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