By: Aphelele Buqwana and Palesa Chidi For many South Africans, the cost of basic healthcare has become its own kind of emergency. That is the reality that shaped the focus of Universal Health Coverage Day, marked on December 12.  UHC Day is a global mark to reaffirm the commitment to ensuring that everyone can access quality healthcare without financial hardship.  In the commemorations in South Africa that took place in Menlyn, Pretoria, the conversation shifted from abstract policy to everyday financial pressure felt in the clinics, hospitals and overall households. The National Department of Health has used this day to […]

TB advocates, researchers and champions have been charged with the task of centering communities in their individual responses to South Africa’s ongoing TB crisis. This focus on community-centred efforts set the tone for the TB Accountability Consortium’s third annual convening, which brought together activists, TB champions, government representatives, partners and health experts to reflect on the country’s progress in the fight against TB. This year’s event, held between 27–28 November under the theme “Reigniting the Response: Reclaiming TB in the Global Health Storm,” provided a platform to discuss challenges, share lessons and look at strategies to strengthen TB prevention, testing, […]

By: Aphelele Buqwana South Africa’s broader economic pressures are increasingly affecting the country’s TB response, with rising costs making it harder for clinics to maintain essential basic services.   Although the health budget increases each year, rising costs for medicines, laboratory services and salaries are outpacing those increases. As a result, provinces have less to spend, leaving clinics with fewer resources for TB testing, treatment and community outreach services.  This is according to Rashaad Amra, a researcher of the Public Economy Project at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, during the two-day SANAC Civil Society Forum (SANAC CSF) engagement hosted by the TB Accountability Consortium (TBAC).  The engagement, which looked at the programmatic and financial outlook […]