- Like the rest of the world, our editor-in-chief, Mia Malan, spent far too much time sucked into the drama that is the Trump administration — and so did you, if our top read stories are anything to go by.
- Our senior programme manager Rosaline Daniel fell for Dr Indira Govender’s night shift at a rural clinic, where no ambulances just meant finding another way. Nicole Ludolph, our engagement producer, couldn’t stop thinking about Groote Schuur’s staff — everyone from the CEO to the porter — navigating budget cuts with their humanity intact.
- Anna-Maria van Niekerk rounded up her favourite Health Beat episodes from our monthly TV programme, which airs the last Sunday of every month on eNCA which included stories about freeing HIV patients from clinic queues, ketamine’s messy promise and the flood survivors that refuse to let their trauma go unheard.
- Here is a mix of your favourites and our most loved print and Health Beat stories this year.
In today’s newsletter, Tanya Pampalone tells us what you were reading in 2025. Sign up for our newsletter today.
Like the rest of the world, our editor-in-chief, Mia Malan, spent far too much time sucked into the drama that is the Trump administration — and so did you, if our top read stories are anything to go by. You clearly needed some good news, and her reporting on the 6-monthly anti-HIV jab, which will roll out next year, seemed to fill that gap.
Also in our top 10: the profile about Ndiviwe Mphothulo, the president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, and the National Health Insurance (NIH) maths problem.
You wouldn’t know it from the list of our top reads, but we also wrote a lot about the much-debated (and stalled) Bill on tobacco products, and stories about ADHD medications and exam cramming, a scary place where migration, climate change and HIV meet and the story about HIV medications in the water that wasn’t (and also is and was, it’s complicated).
But before you head out for the holidays — we see that one foot out the door — we also wanted to tell you about the stories we loved the most.
Our senior programme manager Rosaline Daniel fell for Dr Indira Govender’s night shift at a rural clinic, where no ambulances just meant finding another way. Nicole Ludolph, our engagement producer, couldn’t stop thinking about Groote Schuur’s staff — everyone from the CEO to the porter — navigating budget cuts with their humanity intact.
Anna-Maria van Niekerk rounded up her favourite Health Beat episodes from our monthly TV programme, which airs the last Sunday of every month on eNCA which included stories about freeing HIV patients from clinic queues, ketamine’s messy promise and the flood survivors that refuse to let their trauma go unheard.
Meanwhile, reporter Zano Kunene, left us a couple of months ago, after three years with Bhekisisa. But not before four of his stories were recognised as some of the best solutions stories worldwide. We miss him already.
As a lover of personal essays and longform journalism (and lists like this!) I already rounded up my favourites into our Editors’ pick, seven essays and longreads from 2025 worth savouring.
Here is a mix of your favourites and our most loved print and Health Beat stories this year.
What you’re reading
5. Small win for activists, but SA’s HIV projects won’t get reopened
6. SA gets R520-million to buy the twice-a-year anti-HIV jab — but there’s a snag
Bhekisisa’s staff favourites
Rosaline Daniel, senior programme manager
I proofread Bhekisisa’s stories and this one touched me from the start. As soon as I finished proofreading it, I sent a WhatsApp message to our editor-in-chief, Mia Malan, which said, “What a beautiful piece from Indira Govender.” Dr Govender takes us through one night in her weekly round at a rural clinic in northern KwaZulu-Natal. We see three patients (uMalume, uButhi and uNtombizane), who come into the clinic with mental health problems. I say “see” them because the piece is written like a short story, and we hear what happened to them after visiting the clinic. Her description of limited resources, such as no ambulances, is matter-of-fact, and the response from her and the hospital staff is to work with what they have and come up with solutions that are rooted in community and humanity. This is my favourite story of the year, for its poignancy and message.
Nicole Ludolph, engagement producer
Sean Christie always writes the most beautiful profiles, humanising the country’s health heroes with seeming ease. In “Anatomy of a hospital: Groote Schuur in a time of budget and staffing cuts”, he takes a novel approach and unearths the voices of a variety of staff members at the Cape Town hospital, from the CEO to a porter to medical managers. Add the magic of Jay Caboz’s photography, and you have my favourite story of the year by far.
Mia Malan, editor-in-chief
In the early hours of Tuesday February 27, I was woken up by the message of a senior employee of one of South Africa’s large HIV NGOs, at the time funded by USAID: “We got letters ordering us to close down immediately.” I contacted the CEO of another NGO and asked them to send me their letter. It was shocking: it ended with a sign-off, “God bless America.” Whose god? I thought. But I was also grateful for the vigour of our activists, and the trust they’re willing to place in the media. That call and letter helped Bhekisisa to break the story worldwide.
Watching Health Beat
Anna-Maria van Niekerk produces Health Beat, our monthly TV programme about public health issues in South Africa, which is aired on eNCA the last Sunday of every month. Here are her favourite episodes.
KETAMINE CRAZE | A medical breakthrough, or a dangerous shortcut? Health Beat investigates the ketamine craze
Ketamine has been used for decades as an anaesthetic, but it’s now being prescribed in South Africa for depression that hasn’t responded to other treatments. With no firm rules in place, some clinics are cashing in on people at their lowest point.
In May, Health Beat examined global cases — including actor Matthew Perry’s — and spoke to psychiatrists, anaesthetists and Sahpra (the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority) to spell out what’s safe and what’s legal. We also met a GP whose severe post-natal depression lifted after ketamine treatment. Experts warned that ketamine isn’t a quick fix; it demands proper psychiatric training, close monitoring and hands-on oversight. But hype and desperation still drive patients to online “ketamine coaches” and doctors promising breakthroughs they can’t defend with evidence.
LONGER SCRIPTS, SHORTER LINES | Just two visits a year: Longer ARV scripts, shorter clinic lines
“I can plan my life now,” Neliswa Nkwali told us. After 25 years of living with HIV, she’s finally free from seemingly endless clinic queues. Six-monthly dispensing — 6MMD — of antiretrovirals (ARVs) cuts her visits from every two months to twice a year. July’s Health Beat followed the Western Cape clinics leading the way, where stable patients collect their medicines through ARV clubs that keep queues short and help people stay on treatment. The roll-out isn’t smooth everywhere.
Without a system that tracks patients across provinces, people vanish from the records the moment they travel. And the national roll-out, due to start in August, has stalled. Still, with six million people on ARVs and US funding cuts squeezing the system, this shift is exactly the kind of efficiency South Africa needs. Months after broadcast, Neliswa and fellow activists are still circulating the episode to health workers for a simple reason: it shows that 6MMD works — and any clinic can do it.
CLIMATE CHANGE ON OUR MINDS | Surviving floods: Why mental health services can’t be an afterthought
As KwaZulu-Natal faces another season of severe storms, the lessons from eMbo feel urgent. About 50km outside Durban, Health Beat watched survivors of the 2022 floods turn trauma into data. Through drawings, recordings and storytelling, eMbo’s residents are working with the Africa Health Research Institute to map the psychological toll of climate disasters. They’re part of Wema, a study also underway in Kenya, Mozambique and Burkina Faso, showing how climate change is breaking communities across the continent and why mental health support can’t trail months behind the damage. These stories, from the people who live in disaster-prone areas, know storms will keep coming — and they’re using their stories to demand help that reaches people before the next disaster, not long after the waters recede.
Searching for solutions
In September, our reporter Zano Kunene, moved on from Bhekisisa after three years with the team. He left us (we miss you already!) on a high note. We are so proud that four of Zano’s stories were selected for the Solutions Journalism Network’s Story Tracker. They choose the best stories from around the world that fall strictly into their definition of solutions journalism. As they put it: “While journalists usually define news as what’s gone wrong”, solutions journalism focuses on how people try to solve problems. (By the way, our Health Beat episodes on baby saver boxes and six-monthly dispensing also made the cut!)
You can read Zano’s pieces here:
Tanya Pampalone is Bhekisisa's senior editor. Pampalone is the former managing editor of the Global Investigative Journalism Network and former executive editor of the Mail & Guardian.
