Over 15,000 people were diagnosed with drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) in South Africa last year. The risk of death for people with ordinary treatable TB is high. But it is much higher for patients whose illness cannot be treated using the standard TB medicines.
Koketso Moeti and GroundUp staff
News | 26 November 2013
On the edge of the university hamlet of Grahamstown, there’s a municipal dump where people discard trash. It’s far enough out of town to not smell the stench – or for most locals not to be reminded of the haunting plight of the poor who subsist off the waste.
Mandy de Waal
Feature | 20 November 2013
Thousands of people in South Africa have drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Many of them will die. Death from TB can be slow and horrible. Many of those who do survive will struggle with severe side effects and may need daily pills and injections. Some, like 23-year old Phumeza who described her experience of TB treatment at a Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) press conference last week, will live, but lose their hearing.
Marcus Low
Opinion | 23 October 2013
In April 2012, the Eastern Cape Department of Health (ECDoH) put in place a moratorium on the appointment of healthcare workers to vacant posts at facilities throughout the province. This moratorium was instituted in an attempt to control the chronic overspending that was pushing the department deeper into financial crisis each year.
Daygan Eagar
Opinion | 11 September 2013
The failing healthcare system in the Eastern Cape affects everyone: urban communities, migrants from Gauteng and Cape Town too sick to work anymore or returning home to retire, and healthcare workers who don’t have the medicines, equipment and a functioning referral system, to offer the care their patients need.
Marije Versteeg
Opinion | 11 September 2013
Civil society organisations led by the Treatment Action Campaign marched on 22 March to an event addressed by Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi at a school in Khayelitsha in anticipation of World Tuberculosis (TB) day.
Mary-Jane Matsolo
News | 29 March 2013
New season, new presenter, same time, same channel. Education and health television programme Siyayinqoba Beat-It! will air its first episode of season 8 next week Thursday on SABC 1 at 1:30pm.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 27 March 2013
The Constitutional Court gave judgment in the matter between Dudley Lee and the Minister of Correctional Services on 11 December 2012. The court ruled in favour of Lee. Thus, yesterday almost marked the end of Mr Lee’s seven-year journey through three courts; the Cape High Court will still have to determine the amount the state must pay him.
John Stephens
Opinion | 12 December 2012
Dudley Lee contracted TB while he was an awaiting trial prisoner. Now he's suing the state.
Mary-Jane Matsolo and GroundUp Staff
News | 29 August 2012
A man who contracted tuberculosis (TB) while in prison is in a long-running court battle with the Department of Correctional Services.
GroundUp Staff
News | 20 June 2012
Dudley Lee was arrested in 1999 and spent the next four years in Pollsmoor Prison, while he was tried for fraud and other financial crimes. About 70 court appearances later, he was found not guilty. While in prison he became sick with TB.
GroundUp Staff
News | 20 June 2012