- The National Health Insurance Act awaits a Concourt ruling on two cases, leaving official health reform in limbo. But it doesn’t mean the system isn’t being reworked. People-centred healthcare is alive at centres as diverse as Nqileni Clinic on the Wild Coast, and busy Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.
- Their successes — notably Groote Schuur’s palliative care unit — can be attributed to partnerships with the community, and private institutions and team work among government health facilities.
- At Nqileni, community healthcare workers run like a well-oiled machine. They go from home to home to do health checks, deliver chronic medication, and support mothers and children. The programme has been running for 20 years — refining a model of care that works.
- In North West Province, paraplegics are becoming professional basketball players, nurtured at Gelukspan District Hospital, which has a unique rehabilitation unit. Here communities are trained to take care of their disabled family members and have embraced wheelchair basketball, despite substandard equipment and borrowed facilities.
- The lesson we learned is that when communities lead, and partners support, healthcare becomes accessible and effective.
In today’s newsletter, our Health Beat team tells us why we shouldn’t wait for the NHI to make healthcare more accessible and effective. Sign up for our newsletter today.
Anna-Maria van Niekerk is Bhekisisa’s news editor. She joined the centre after six years as the managing editor of the investigative television show, Carte Blanche. Anna-Maria has an extensive career in in-depth health and human rights reporting and has been named both the Vodacom Journalist (2002) and Discovery Health Journalist of the Year (2010) for exposés on the selling of human body parts for muti in Limpopo and the devastating consequences of HIV denialism.
Mia Malan is the founder and editor-in-chief of Bhekisisa. She has worked in newsrooms in Johannesburg, Nairobi and Washington, DC, winning more than 30 awards for her radio, print and television work.
Jessica Pitchford is Bhekisisa's TV and multimedia editor. She's been a journalist since the early nineties and has reported on some pivotal events in South Africa’s political history, such as the country’s transition to democracy and the work of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.
Albert Tibane is a freelance cameraman and editor with credits in local and international television and film, including Carte Blanche, Strangers You Know and The Boxing Club SA (Alfa Media Tuner).
Jeannine Snyman has worked in TV for over 25 years and has extensive experience in all aspects of the production chain.
