Posts tagged with 'healthcare system'

 

Medical negligence claims in public health sector rise by 25%

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The sorry state of the public health sector is reflected in the sharp rise in medical negligence claims against provincial health departments, increasing by around 25% per year between 2011 and 2016.
Medical negligence claims rise by 25%.

This is according to Kirstie Haslam, partner at DSC Attorneys who says that the Gauteng Department of Health receives a particularly staggering number of negligence claims each year. Since January 2015, it has been forced to pay out more than R1.017bn 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 majority of which were ruled in favour of the plaintiffs,” Haslam explains.

She points out that several shocking cases of gross medical negligence have received media attention over the past few years.

Birth injuries

Haslam says that medical negligence claims involving
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Noord-Kaapse departement van gesondheid staar Miljoene rande se eise in gesig vir nalatigheid by 3 geboortes

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Die Noord-Kaapse departement van gesondheid kan hom regmaak vir eise van R60 miljoen vir skadevergoeding nadat hy mediese nalatigheid by die geboorte van drie babas erken het.

Die bedrae wat geëis word, moet nog in verdere verhore bewys word.

Dit volg op drie siviele gedinge wat die afgelope drie weke in die hooggeregshof in Kimberley teen die LUR van gesondheid ingedien is.

Die babas wat weens nalatigheid gestremd is, benodig heeltydse versorging en terapie. Geld moet ook vir hul toekomstige mediese behoeftes opsy gesit word.

Hul ouers moet onder meer ook sielkundige berading kry.

Die eise vir die babas beloop elk tussen R18 miljoen en R20 miljoen, en vir die ouers sowat R1,1 miljoen elk.

Die eis van ’n vrou wat heeltydse gesondheidsprobleme weens die bevalling ontwikkel het, beloop R1,8 miljoen.

Die mediese personeel in die drie gevalle word daarvan beskuldig dat hulle nie deurentyd die pasiënte en hul ongebore babas gemonitor en betyds regst
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Annual Global Burden of Disease Study : SA’s development vs health progress gap

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South Africa has one of the greatest misalignments in the world between development and health progress. It is one of five countries where actual health burden rates far exceed what one would expect based on its income and education levels, plus fertility rates. So says the Annual Global Burden of Disease Study.

“Life expectancy in South Africa is rapidly increasing, but that doesn’t mean we’re enjoying healthier lives. Communicable diseases like HIV, car accidents, and waves of violence are taking the lives of far too many South Africans, especially young people. This is one of the few countries in the world where the number of healthy years that men and women can expect to live has fallen over the past 25 years. We have a lot of work to do,” said Professor Charles Shey Wiysonge, director of Cochrane South Africa and a co-author of the study.

The study’s main findings for South Africa include:

A South African man born in 2016 can expect to live 59.2
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Noord-Kaapse LUR van gesondheid moet opdok vir bejaarde se onderbeen

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Die Noord-Kaapse LUR van gesondheid is Woensdag in die hooggeregshof in Kimberley beveel om die mediese en regskoste te betaal van ’n bejaarde man wat sy onderbeen weens mediese nalatigheid verloor het.

Regter Mpho Mamosebo het in haar uitspraak gesê dit ontstem haar dat ’n kundige soos dr. Qebelo Maseme, wat vir die LUR getuig het, partydig is. Sy het sy getuienis verwerp.

Patrick Erasmus (nou 76) se linkerbeen is in 2013 bokant die knie afgesit nadat hy aanvanklik vir ’n groottoon met infeksie behandel is.

Sy probleme het begin toe hy op 13 November 2012 vir ’n opvolgbesoek by ’n private dokter was.

Die dokter, wat intussen ’n skikking met Erasmus buite die hof bereik het, het ’n rekkie om die toon gebind om die toonnael te verwyder. Die toon is toegebind.

Twee besoeke later het die dokter Erasmus ingelig dat hy gangreen in die toon het en hom na die staatshospitaal in Kimberley verwys.

’n Senior dokter daar het op 20 November verde
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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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The maddening state of Gauteng’s psychiatric facilities

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A massive shortages of hospital beds for psychiatric patients in Gauteng is compromising patient care.

Gauteng is short of about 2700 psychiatric beds which means that psychiatric patients have to be admitted to general wards where there is no security, thus posing a threat both to themselves and others.

This was revealed recently by Gauteng Health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa in a 22-page statement handed to the Gauteng Legislature in response to questions about the state of psychiatric care for hospitalised patients.

By the time a person with a psychiatric illness is hospitalised, their symptoms are usually severe and patients may be suicidal or psychotic.

The World Health Organisation (using prevalence US figures) estimates that up to three percent of a population will have severe psychiatric conditions and need hospitalisation. This excludes figures for people with substance abuse-related disorders and post-traumatic stress – so it is likely to be an under-esti
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Swak higiëne by Thelle Mogoerane-streekhospitaal veroorsak dat babas sterf ná ’n uitbreking van ’n weerstandige Klebsiella-bakterie

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Twee pasgebore babas is dood ná ’n uitbreking van ’n weerstandige Klebsiella-bakterie in die Thelle Mogoerane-streekhospitaal in Vosloorus aan die Oos-Rand.

Klebsiella-longontsteking is in die hospitaal se neonatale-eenheid geïdentifiseer.

Lesemang Matuka, woordvoerder van die Gautengse departement van gesondheid, sê sewe gevalle van Klebsiella-longontsteking is in Julie geïdentifiseer “en het ongelukkig tot die sterfte van twee babas gelei”.

Monsters is geneem en is na die laboratorium gestuur om die bron van die siekte vas te stel.

Die hospitaal het sedertien maatreëls getref om infeksievoorkoming en -beheer te versterk en die eenheid noukeurig te monitor.

“Die departement beplan om ’n provinsiale taakspan te saam te stel wat deur ’n neonatoloog gelei word om deurlopend te kyk na die maatreëls om moontlike toekomstige infeksies in al ons geriewe te voorkom,” het prof. Mkhululi Lukhele, departementshoof, wat Woensdagoggend die hosp
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Hospitaal in De Aar word leeg gesteel en gevandaliseer terwyl die departement van gesondheid skynbaar niks daaraan doen nie

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Die ou Karoo Sentraal-hospitaal in De Aar in die Noord-Kaap word glo al maande lank bedags en snags “leeggesteel” en gevandaliseer terwyl die departement van gesondheid skynbaar niks daaraan doen nie.

Die waskamer se toerusting is gesteel of gevandaliseer, sê inwoners.
Hospitaal in De Aar word leeg gesteel en gevandaliseer terwyl die departement van gesondheid skynbaar niks daaraan doen nie

Só sê Martin Barnard wat in Visserstraat naby die hospitaal woon.

Dié hospitaal het in onbruik geraak sedert die nuwe De Aar-hospitaal ’n paar jaar gelede oopgemaak is.
Die skade moet al derduisende rande beloop, en dit word net nie gestuit nie, sê Barnard.

“Ek is geskok. Ons inwoners voel nou self bedreig. In die afgelope m
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Nearly 2 million will lose private healthcare if tax reform happens

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The government’s plan to ditch medical aid tax credits will have a disastrous effect on already cash-strapped South Africans and force nearly 2 million people onto the over-stretched state health system.

If the tax credit is removed, 22% of medical aid users will not be able to afford cover, Stellenbosch economics consultancy Econex warned in a report published on Friday – 1.9 million of the 8 million medical aid members, including children, will have to drop out of the private healthcare system.

In a national health insurance policy document released in July, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said he wanted to remove the tax credit to users, which amounts to R20-billion a year.

Medical aid schemes’ members get a tax reduction of R3,636 a year – or R303 a month. Motsoaledi said then that “the tax credit … we believe, is unfair”.

Economist Paula Armstrong, author of the Econex analysis, said the rebate was intended to “alleviate some pressure on the state [
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Tygerberg Hospital performs its first deep brain stimulation

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A man with tardive dystonia became the first adult to undergo deep brain stimulation (DBS) at a Western Cape state hospital. His condition drastically improved following the procedure at Tygerberg.

Until now it had only been performed on a few children at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.

The dystonia was a side effect of an anti-psychopathic medication prescribed to the patient for bipolar disorder. However, the dystonia persisted after the medication was discontinued. By the time the DBS operation was performed, the patient had already been confined to bed for six months.

The operation was performed by Dr Armin Gretschel, a neurosurgeon with Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS). The equipment was provided by Medtronic.

According to Gretschel, two very thin electrodes were implanted in the globus pallidus on both sides of the brain to block the electrical impulses causing the movement disorder. Healthy brain tissue is n
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Doctors Sound Alarm That SA Mental Healthcare Is Collapsing

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While almost all the previous Life Esidimeni psychiatric patients have been transferred from the NGOs in Gauteng back into hospitals, a group of doctors have warned that the psychiatric structure in South Africa is collapsing.

Reports reveal that in some mental health hospitals there are no psychiatrists, and none of the provinces have organised community-based psychiatric services at present. The South African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP) said even 150 days after the Health Ombudsman released a report, many hospitals were still facing a shortage of staff with minimal resources.

The president of the SASOP, Professor Bernard Janse van Rensburg, told Health24 that South Africa’s healthcare system is totally fragmented and broken. “Esidimeni was just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. At the beginning of this year, Health Ombudsman Professor Malegapuru Makgoba said the death toll of mentally ill patients who were transferred from Life Esidimeni to 27 NGOs w
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Health MEC ‘putting band aid on gaping wound of oncology crisis’

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The DA in KwaZulu-Natal on Sunday renewed its call for Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo to be fired, saying it appears he is “trying to put a band aid on a large gaping wound” in respect of the province’s oncology crisis.

The DA had been advised by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) that Dhlomo had met the latest in a series of deadlines in terms of its recommendations required to address the province’s cancer crisis, DA MPL Imran Keeka said.

This followed the SAHRC’s release of a damning report in June which found Dhlomo and his department guilty of violating the rights of KwaZulu-Natal cancer patients by failing to provide proper access to treatment.

Keeka said the DA had received a copy of the MEC’s submissions from the SAHRC, which the party was currently assessing.

“On the face of it, it appears that the MEC is trying to put a band aid on a large gaping wound, with the proposals providing little in the way of concrete steps to
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Eerste tenders vir omstrede nasionale gesondheidsversekering uitgereik

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Die eerste tenders vir die omstrede nasionale gesondheidsversekering (NGV) is uitgereik.

Die departement van gesondheid soek voorstelle van die private sektor oor hoe om vyf programme – sommiges wat tans katastrofies deur staatshospitale behartig word – reg te ruk.

Net drie van die land se grootste administrateurs van mediese fondse het opgedaag vir die inligtingsessie om sake te gesels, verneem Rapport.

Kundiges het in reaksie gesê dié NGV-planne lyk glad nie soos die ideologiese prentjie van ’n funksionerende geïntegreerde gesondheidsdiens vir almal nie, maar is eerder ’n uitkontraktering van bestaande pligte van die staat teen bykomende koste.

Die regering soek private maatskappy om onder meer die volgende te doen:

* Bestralingsdienste vir kankerpasiënte: Luiden
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Shortage of pathologists an inconvenience to families

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Post-mortems are mandatory to determine the cause of death. The shortage of pathologists in the country has left several distraught families stranded. The situation has resulted in the delay of conducting post-mortems. Grieving families are forced to wait much longer before burying their loved ones. One family had to have a funeral service without the..
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Resident allegedly turned away from clinic because she’s ‘white’

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The metro has denied claims that Yolanda Ferencak’s children were turned away from Birchleigh North Clinic because they are white.

“The acting manager interviewed all the personnel at Birchleigh North Clinic. They indicated that none of them saw or sent away any patient or referred them to Birchleigh Clinic,” said Themba Gadebe, the metro’s spokesperson.

Ferencak from Terenure told Express that her 25-year-old daughter had taken her 11-month-old boy for immunisation injections at the clinic on July 4 when they were allegedly denied service.

“When my daughter got to the clinic she said a woman told her they did not assist white people and that it was a blacks-only clinic,” said Ferencak.

“Because they needed to go to a clinic, they then went to Birchleigh Clinic where they were assisted and a file for the baby was opened.”

“Racial preference or remarks are not tolerated and serious actions will be taken, should it occur,” said Gadebe.
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