Long Form

In February, Mzulungile Nodikida stepped into the top seat at the South African Medical Association. He tells Sean Christie how he went from playing soccer and cricket while at school in the Eastern Cape to studying medicine in Cuba — and how his career path moved from seeing patients every day to steering an organisation that stands for “uniting doctors for the health of the nation”.

In 2016, when renowned South African cardiologist Ntobeko Ntusi stepped into the role as head and chair of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) department of medicine, he took on both responsibilities and a legacy that most would have baulked at, amidst much scrutiny. He spoke to Sean Christie about his life’s trajectory, shortly before he joins the South African Medical Research Council as its new president and CEO.

At a conference towards the end of last year, some of the great names in African public healthcare shared their lessons about what can — and can’t — work on the continent, from setting up new hospitals to implementing national health insurance. Sean Christie was there.

With a black beret “à la the EFF” and fire-engine red scrubs, Ebrahim Variava is not scared to speak out against the ills of a broken public health system — something that got him suspended from his post as head of internal medicine at the Tshepong Hospital in Klerksdorp in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. Meet the doctor for whom patients are always the priority.

The Earth is getting hotter and extreme weather events are becoming more common. It’s bad news for our lives. We break down how climate change links to poor health.

When a child is emotionally manipulated by one parent to hate the other, the legal system and therapists grapple with how to help families repair their relationships. Here’s why so-called parental alienation cases are contentious.

A new tool may help to keep workers who breathe in silica dust safe from silicosis — at less than R50 a prick.

In 2022, after a decade of service, Ben Gaunt, who led a team who transformed Zithulele Hospital in the Eastern Cape from a struggling public health facility into a poster child of excellence, left the facility. The drama, which followed the appointment of a controversial CEO, was well publicised. We spoke to Gaunt one year later.

Nine years after a Grade R learner, Michael Komape, drowned in a pit toilet at his school in Limpopo, 2 334 schools in the province still have these structures on their premises. Here are the hits and misses of the education department’s efforts to get rid of them since — and what they can learn from India.

Strong winds, trees being cut down and drought drive sand to pile up and swallow the houses of the ancient seaside town Hobyo, Somalia. Will promises to green the desert save families who have been forced to move before?

From growing up without a telephone to her appointment as the chief director of digital health systems in the national health department, the sweep of Milani Wolmarans’s life story is as wide as it is inspiring. Sean Christie spoke to her in Tshwane.

Some small-scale black tobacco farmers in Limpopo feel that the tobacco industry supported them under the guise of an upliftment programme, but then used them to fight against illicit tobacco trade. By 2021, the financial support dried up.

The WHO may have declared leprosy eliminated in 1998, but Bangladeshi tea pickers continue to be infected by the thousands.

Healthworkers are being attacked by Myanmar’s military — observers say it’s a tactic of war.

Pharmacy expert Andy Gray is the “insider’s insider” in South Africa’s public health sphere. Get to know him better here.

For grandmothers across Côte d’Ivoire, climate change has had unexpected consequences. Once abundant with crop life, sustenance farming has become an unpredictable nightmare in the country’s villages. Young people of working age are now leaving villages in droves — without their children.