Author: Njih Favour
Karlena Matthyzer scooping samp in the Pebbles Kitchen, which produces between 2 200 and 2 400 meals daily. (Photo: Biénne Huisman/Spotlight) News & Features 7th October 2025 | Biénne Huisman Despite the country’s relative wealth, South Africa has shockingly high levels of childhood malnutrition and stunting. Spotlight spent some time with a small team who have made it their business to bring solutions to the table and to get nutritious meals to the kids of farm workers in the Western Cape. At the Pebbles Kitchen at Klein Joostenberg outside Stellenbosch, Karlena Matthyzer is scooping boiled samp into plastic packets. These…
23-year-old Othandiweyo Mkula from Tsolo in the Eastern Cape is on a mission to help prevent more young people in his community from acquiring HIV. Mkula tells Health-e News that when he tested positive for HIV in 2021, it felt as if his world were crumbling. As a gay person living with HIV, he has faced stigma and discrimination that have severely impacted his mental health. “People can be cruel and say all sorts of nasty things that may break you if you are not a strong person,” says Mkula. “The fact that I grew up gay was a challenge…
By Dr David R. Katerere, Dr Ntamo T. Lechaba and Dr Kumbirayi I. Mateva In early 2025, South Africa’s Minister of Health issued a government notice banning the sale, production, and import of food products containing cannabis, including hemp seed oil and flour. The ban was based on the 1972 Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act. After public backlash and threats of legal action, the notice was withdrawn for further consultation. While widely understood as a ban on “cannabis edibles”, the incident highlights deeper inconsistencies in South Africa’s cannabis and hemp laws. Rather than being a setback, the controversy offers an…
It’s been 28 years, but Thabisile Gumede remembers the day she first experienced a schizophrenic episode. She was just 17 years old and visiting her grandmother’s farm in KwaMhlabauyalingana in the northern parts of KwaZulu-Natal. “I heard a voice saying: ‘I’m so pathetic. Do you really think anyone cares if you’re sad?” Gumede recalls. “I didn’t know where it came from. I looked around, and I couldn’t see anyone, but this voice kept talking to me. I got scared. I just ran home because I was out in the field. I thought I could just hide in my room, and…
Dr Deidre McPherson is one of ten women trauma surgeons in South Africa’s public healthcare sector. (Photo: Discovery Foundation) News & Features 3rd October 2025 | Biénne Huisman Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town has one of the busiest emergency centres in the Western Cape. As it turns to the public to raise R20 million for the opening of a new emergency centre, Dr Deidre McPherson chats to Spotlight about the hospital’s trauma frontline. Deep into the night while most of Cape Town is asleep, trauma surgeon Dr Deidre McPherson slips into work scrubs, hitting the highway to Groote Schuur…
This project is funded by: The gold mine dumps towering over parts of Soweto are a familiar landscape. But for those living in their shadow, these landmarks pose a serious health threat. “Growing up in Diepkloof next to a mine dump was normal, as the mine dump was seen as a natural mountain,” says Michael Lelaka. “However, growing older, we saw that the mountain was yellow in colour. And during the dry season, it is unbearable living in Diepkloof. The gold dust will cover the yard with a fine yellow dust. You’ll find this dust inside the house, on the…
By Tian Johnson, the African Alliance Shifawu Abdulkarim has spent 14 years as a community mobiliser and distributor in Kaduna State, Nigeria. She says motherhood motivates her to do everything she can to protect children from malaria. Her work has likely helped to bridge the gap between global policy and local survival. In one campaign, supported by the Global Fund, Shifawu joined nearly 12 000 mobilisers who distributed millions of insecticide-treated nets and delivered malaria chemoprevention to more than two million children under five. She has been part of a health revolution that has saved up to 70 million lives…
Most medical devices are used in healthcare settings but some like bandages, thermometers, condoms, and blood pressure monitors are used at home. (Photo: Shutterstock) News & Features 1st October 2025 | Catherine Tomlinson Unlike with medicines, and with a few exceptions, South Africa’s regulator does not assess whether diagnostic tests and other medical devices on the market are safe and work as they are supposed to. The regulator has however started down a road that should eventually lead to the regulation of all medical devices in the country. From scalpels to surgical robots, finger-prick diagnostic tests to MRIs, thermometers to…
An interim report by the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) into corruption at Tembisa Tertiary Hospital has revealed that officials at the Gauteng Department of Health and hospital staff abdicated their duties, allowing fraudulent activities to go unabated. Speaking at the release of the report at the hospital on Monday, Advocate Andy Mothibi from the SIU said the extent of the fraud and corruption unearthed was only possible because officials disregarded their duties. The investigation, initially meant to probe expenditure at the hospital from January 2020 to September 2023, expanded its scope to investigate transactions from 2018 to 2024. Over R2…
By Dr Chioma Ohanjunwa and Dr Mapheyeledi Sibindlana, Africa Centre for Inclusive Health Management Medical equipment, health professionals and medicines are vital to South Africa’s healthcare system. But most treatment plans overlook a crucial element of health: spirituality. Health professionals and many academics across various disciplines shy away from the topic. This only fuels the misperception that spirituality is defined by strict religious frameworks, and demands only personal, individual, and inner work. Spirituality broadly pertains to values and beliefs regarding our connection to, and relationship with, the self and all others, including families, communities, institutions, land, nature, animals and…