HIV

PREVENTATIVE and primary care are in some respects two sides of the same coin.

Primary care involves visiting an appropriate healthcare practitioner when an illness first starts for first-line treatment — before the illness progresses.

Preventative care is incredibly important, and is necessary to prevent conditions or illnesses from getting worse or needing radical treatment, according to Heidi Kruger, the Board of Healthcare Funders head of corporate communications.

And though it may cost a medical scheme more money while it is putting a disease management programme together for diabetes, HIV or another chronic condition, it’s going to save medical scheme members, as well as the scheme itself, money in the long term.

Since the 2009 Lancet Health in South Africa Series, important changes have occurred in the country, resulting in an
increase in life expectancy to 60 years. Historical injustices together with the disastrous health policies of the previous
administration are being transformed. The change in leadership of the Ministry of Health has been key, but new
momentum is inhibited by stasis within the health management bureaucracy. Specific policy and programme changes
are evident for all four of the so-called colliding epidemics: HIV and tuberculosis; chronic illness and mental health;
injury and violence; and maternal, neonatal, and child health. South Africa now has the world’s largest programme of

(Five-year contract appointment with possible extension)

(Ref: TGB14/411/1112)

SOUTH Africa’s second-biggest private hospital group, Life Healthcare, was planning to open 1,000 more beds within the next four years, anticipating growing demand from an increasingly sick population, the company said on Friday.

Life Healthcare is one of three private hospital groups listed on the JSE. A bout 90% of its patients are covered by medical aid.

"We’ve been talking about the South African growth story for some time," said CEO Michael Flemming in an interview as the company released its annual results for the year to September 30. "The demand is in the nature of (SA’s) disease profile.

South Africa is on track to reach its target of supplying antiretroviral treatment (ARVs) to 2.5 million people by the year 2014, says the Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini.

Dlamini was speaking at the launch of the State of the World Population 2012 report in the sprawling Imizamo Yethu settlement in Cape Town. The report, compiled by the United Nations Population Fund, was released worldwide on Wednesday.

The minister said that the fight against HIV and Aids was having some positive results. The mother-to-child transmission rate had declined from 8 percent in 2008 to 3.5 percent in 2011, "ensuring that annually over 30 000 babies are protected from infection and poor health".

IN A break with the Department of Health’s historically tense relationship with the private sector, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has entered into a "social compact" with the CEOs of leading healthcare companies.

He has committed to regular meetings with the CEOs, who have in turn pledged money for a Public Health Enhancement Fund to tackle the skills shortages facing the healthcare sector, and improve the management of HIV and tuberculosis.

A total of R40m has been promised for the first year from 23 companies representing drug manufacturers, diagnostics companies, private hospitals, pharmacies, medical scheme administrators, distributors and pharmacy benefit managers.

Government’s HIV/AIDS programme is bearing fruit, with fewer deaths now than in 2006. And older people are now dying, not young people in the prime of their lives, according to the Census released yesterday.

The majority of the deaths recorded by the Census were due to natural causes, with just 9.6% of them attributed to unnatural causes. However, the number of people dying in South Africa has decreased since 2006. Statisticians believe that the majority of deaths prior to 2006 were related to the AIDS epidemic and that the onset of the government’s AIDS treatment programme has reduced the mortality figures.

Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women in southern Africa, but new research reveals that governments’ attempts to address the disease have been inadequate. Access to cervical cancer screening services is minimal, few countries in the region have policies on the disease, and treatment remains a major challenge.

PURPOSE:

Health Systems Trust wishes to appoint 132 Health Systems Strengthening facilitators to support interventions at sub district, facility and community level in support of the South Africa Sustainable Response to HIV and AIDS (SA SURE) project. SA SURE aims to strengthen local capacity to provide sustainable HIV and TB-related care and treatment services, within each of the sub districts listed below. This is a one year, fixed-term contract position, renewable based on funding availability and performance.

A study published in the latest edition of a leading medical journal explains why the survival rate of HIV-positive women is higher than that of men.