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The tattoos on Zandile Simelane’s arms tell a story that most people can’t read. Hidden beneath the delicate blue ink of flowers and butterflies, dull white scars rise, remnants of the time when cutting herself seemed like the only way to express how much she was hurting. (Bhekisisa)
ACCESS TO CARE

Cutting: Why teens turn to self-harm when they don’t have words for their pain

For some teenagers, emotional pain manifests as deliberately cutting, burning, hitting, biting, scratching or picking at their skin

  • Tanya Pampalone
  • Anna-Maria van Niekerk
  • Jessica Pitchford
  • Mia Malan
  • Yolanda Mdzeke
  • Thatego Mashabela
  • Justin Barlow
  • Jeannine Du Preez
8 min read
Treatment Action Campaign members and supporters march to demand answers from the MEC for health, Dr Makhura at the premieres office in Newtown. (Photo: Andy Mkosi)
ANELE YAWA

Treatment Action Campaign demands Makhura fix Gauteng’s health system ‘mess’ now

The TAC wants the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, closed after a fire in April, to reopen fully as soon as possible, because other hospitals are overburdened.

  • Chris Gilili
4 min read
Senior clinicians have warned of a healthcare crisis if Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital remains closed. (BigFive Images/ Gallo)
CHARLOTTE MAXEKE ACADEMIC HOSPITAL

Gauteng health system is heading for catastrophe

While officials remain entangled in bureaucratic knots, clinicians warn that the continued closure of the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital risks a ‘humanitarian…

  • Dennis Webster
6 min read
‘Servant leader’: Sanac chief executive Thembisile Xulu affords all people respect, whether they are her ‘helper of 19 years or the deputy president’. (James Puttick)
ANGELA MAKHOLWA

Q&A Sessions: Meet Thembisile Xulu, a doctor, hip-hop fan and mother

Dr Thembisile Xulu, the newly appointed chief executive of the Sanac Trust, tells Nicolene de Wee about a new plan to fight HIV, TB and STIs — and her hip-hop dance moves

  • Nicolene de Wee
6 min read
The virus takes its name from the Ebola River, near the site of one of the first recorded outbreaks in what is now the DRC, in 1976.
CHOLERA

The coping mechanisms the DRC is putting in place as it faces Ebola, measles and Covid-19

The DRC has systematically gone about strengthening health infrastructure, engaging the community and doing better research

  • Yap Boum
5 min read
A Gauteng township association, which forcefully removed foreign shopkeepers, disagrees with two economists and wants the government to protect the informal sector
ACCESS TO WATER

There are limits to what a capitalist government can do in this crisis

We need an entirely new way of doing things to put an end to poverty

  • Greg Dor
10 min read
Parliament does not have robust enough rules governing member behaviour. (David Harrison/M&G)
CONSTITUTION

Covid-19 has long-term implications for politics and policymaking

We need to work together regardless of our political ideologies to build the health system, stabilise the economy and protect the most vulnerable in society

  • Paul Kariuki
4 min read
Gauteng Premier David Makhura said the province would do whatever is needed to address the shortage of additional space and beds to accommodate the rising Covid-19 admissions in hospitals.
BANDILE MASUKU

Gauteng uses tragedy to fix services

In addition to other measures, the province’s response the outbreak of the coronavirus will be to ‘sort out’ the public healthcare system

  • Sarah Smit
5 min read
Supervisor Brighten Mashau pushes an ultraviolet (UV) pulse lights disinfecting robot at the Netcare Sunninghill Hospital in Johannesburg., (Michele Spatari / AFP)
CORONAVIRUS

Eusebius McKaiser: Certain views about Covid-19’s global trajectory are anti-poor and anti-human

This is no time to snigger at the high rates of coronavirus in the Global North. We could be just as hard hit — and it is poor people who will suffer the most

  • Eusebius McKaiser
7 min read