Miriam Mannak
CAPE TOWN, Apr 21 2009 (IPS) – The quality of South African public health services cannot improve if community-based organisations (CBOs) are not given a greater role in shaping, developing and implementing national and provincial health policies.
This was one of the key demands CBOs made at a health summit at the University of Cape Town (UCT) on Apr. 17 and 18.
We can only improve the situation in our health care system if we work together, said Damaris Fritz, chairperson of the Cape Metro Health Forum, a network of CBOs working within Cape Town s health sector and the gathering s main organiser.
People who work at grassroots level know best what communities need, yet government often tends to make decisions without consulting them, she added.…
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, May 19 2009 (IPS) – A year after powerful Cyclone Nargis tore through Burma s Irrawaddy Delta and southern Rangoon, killing tens of thousands of people, nature continues to play a cruel trick on survivors.
It has led to thousands of villagers still left without access to clean water, a situation that is rare in natural disasters of similar magnitude. In Indonesia s northern province of Aceh, which was flattened by the 2004 tsunami, clean water was restored to the survivors within the first year.
The problem in Burma stems from the challenge to clean the large ponds that serve as a major source of water for the villages spread across the nearly 18,500 square kilometres that was affected by the cyclone in the early hours of May 3, 2008.
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Thalif Deen interviews DR. BINDESHWAR PATHAK, the 2009 Stockholm Water Prize laureate
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 21 2009 (IPS) – In India, many moons ago, nobody dared talk about toilets a subject that was taboo, particularly at mealtime.
Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak Credit: Sulabh Sanitation Movement
Those who were employed to clean toilets were treated as untouchables and designated human scavengers , says Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, who has been named winner of the 2009 Stockholm Water Prize.
They were not allowed to mingle with other people or have soci…
Skye Wheeler
JUBA, Sudan, Aug 14 2009 (IPS) – In the war-devastated South Sudan, a region with a population of over eight million people, Yeneneh Mulugeta is the only permanent ophthalmologist.
Dozens visit the eye clinic in the semi-autonomous region s capital every day from across the South trying to have their sight restored, mostly old and silent, waiting their turn with a helper. The Ethiopian doctor has performed hundreds of cataract operations removing the protein build-up that covers the eye that miraculously bring back sight.
Reversible cataract is probably responsible for half the cases of blindness in the South, but Mulugeta and government officials in the health sector know there are thousands who have no access to treatment. They also know although no com…
Adrianne Appel
BOSTON, Sep 18 2009 (IPS) – As all factions of the U.S. Congress continue a bruising debate about how to change the U.S. health system, one state, Massachusetts, seems to point the way clear, but activists say the Massachusetts plan is already troubled and doomed by skyrocketing costs.
All the major plans in Congress are mirrored after the reforms in Massachusetts, including the requirement that everyone purchase insurance at market rates which grow yearly or face a hefty fine. The fine is up to 1,000 dollars in Massachusetts.
Once failure to buy health insurance is a federal offence, what s next? Steffie Woolhandler, a Harvard physician and member of Physicians for a National Health Programme, recently told a Congressional committee.
The Massa…
Helen Clark
HANOI, Nov 4 2009 (IPS) – Think of a world where rich nations did not fund what was popular but instead collaborated to solve the developing world s most pressing health needs.
Lawrence Gostin, an Associate Dean and Professor of Global Health at the Georgetown University Law Center, dreams of such a world. He wants to see developed countries, for instance, make available to the rest of the world life-saving vaccines and technologies at affordable prices instead of hoarding them to the detriment of the world s poor.
Speaking at the first International Conference on Realising the Rights to Health and Development for All, held in Hanoi from October 26 to 29, Professor Gostin argued for a new approach to meeting the world s health needs, calling it a Global Pl…
LUSAKA, Nov 30 2009 (IPS) – Sixteen-year-old Andela Milambo* wants a husband. She is not looking for love, but for someone to share the burden of living with HIV. She wants to be able to take her medicine without having to hide, to discuss the recurring herpes with someone who understands.
A hand woven tag bearing the HIV symbol on sale at the Sokoni Market in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: Allan Gichigi/IRIN
Living with HIV since the age of six, she wa…
Kristin Palitza
LOUWVILLE, South Africa, Jan 6 2010 (IPS) – HIV-related stigma and discrimination remain a key concern in South Africa, despite the multitude of HIV awareness campaigns that have been launched by government and civil society organisations throughout the years, health experts say.
Stigma continues to be a seriously neglected issue , particularly in sub-Saharan countries, including South Africa, regardless of the fact that it has detrimental effects on public health and human rights, according to a 2007 UNAIDS report.
Fifty-year-old Gertrude* from Hopefield, a small village on South Africa s West Coast, experiences the effects of stigma and discrimination every day: A lot of people in my community shun me. They swear at me and call me names because I m H…
Servaas van den Bosch
WINDHOEK, Mar 16 2010 (IPS) – At home we have a bar, says grade seven learner David Bravo* (14). When my mother puts on the music I cannot concentrate on (my) schoolwork anymore. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I just sit there and watch the people.
One the learners who attends the AIDS Care Trust’s after-school programme in Katutura township near Windhoek. Cr…
Julio Godoy
PARIS, Apr 22 2010 (IPS) – French state-owned company Areva continues to deny any wrongdoing after findings that populated areas in Niger remain contaminated with high levels of radio-activity. The company seems to be escaping censure partly because of lack of data on cancer-related causes of death among Nigeriens working at or living near the uranium mines.
