“I’m not a dancer anymore, who am I?” – Jacques d’Amboise When prima ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq (1929-2000) played the part of a stricken polio victim in Resurgence (1944) when she was fifteen, little did she know that she was rehearsing her own sad fate. The biographical documentary Afternoon of a Faun (2013) tells the […]
Health
Posted inHealth
Let’s talk about suicide
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. About five years ago, as my family and parents and siblings celebrated Christmas Day together, we received a call from the UK. My uncle, my father’s twin brother, a larger-than-life man in his mid-seventies, with a large family of his own, and ostensibly in good health at the time, […]
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
Ebola lays bare the fragile nature of the ‘Africa rising’ narrative
The “Africa rising” narrative of the past couple of years is emotionally compelling for anyone living here. Not because such a rise would be deserved, but because it happens to be true. Investment in sub-Saharan Africa has been booming and the middle-class is burgeoning. Although not everywhere triumphant, democracy has taken vigorous root. On the […]
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
Depression never leaves you
By Sifiso Yengwa With Robin Williams’ death still fresh in the minds of many, the issue of depression has once again come to the fore. Nowadays it is generally accepted that depression is a clinical condition that is manageable with drugs and other forms of prescribed treatment. Sadly the majority of people still hold a […]
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
Beating Ebola in a global village
By Anayo Unachukwu While I was writing this piece, I received a news alert from the Washington Post, about the arrival to the US of Dr Kent Brantly, an American doctor, who was infected with Ebola while working in Liberia with a Christian missionary organisation — Samaritan’s Purse. His repatriation to his country was not […]
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
When a handshake can kill you…
As a doctor I greet many people, both new and familiar, every week, and inevitably we shake hands. It would feel awkward not to do so. This is the way I was brought up, that a firm handshake is a mark of strong character, part of the process of creating a good first impression, and […]
Posted inEquality, Health, News/Politics
Black girl desire in a time of hopelessness
I remember very well the first “sex talk” I had with my mother. We were in the rural areas for the holidays when my cousin pulled me aside to tell me that there were red spots on my trousers. What was to follow was a confusing day where I felt my body had betrayed me […]
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
Medical care or medical cruelty? Time to make gentle that parting embrace
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, with customary forthrightness, recently broke ranks with his own church to plead for a “mind shift” in the “right to die” debate. “I think when you need machines to help you breathe then you have to ask questions about the quality of life being experienced … Why is a life that […]
Posted inHealth
The hospital has left the building
By Dr Shahra Sattar On Duinefontein Road in Manenberg there is a building that used to be GF Jooste Hospital. This building is not beautiful by any stretch. There are no glittering mosaics or eco-friendly manicured lawns greeting you at its entrance promising a fantastic service. No, this building is surrounded by a train track, […]
Posted inEquality, Health, Media
Auschwitz should put us off our food
While a crudely assembled advert that ran in the Mail & Guardian featuring pictures of a pork factory farm and concentration camp prisoners side by side was naïve, the reaction from Caryn Gootkin in her piece, “I’m a Jew, not a pig” is misplaced. Quite rightly, we’re shocked by pictures of the camp inmates, and […]
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
Doing panga surgery with the National Health Act
Legislators are like tik addicts. They’re convinced that after just one more hit they’ll find Nirvana. But the law, especially when cack-handedly drafted, is an imperfect instrument for changing society. It’s like using a panga for plastic surgery: the results are likely to please neither practitioner nor patient. Filled as it is with a righteous […]
Posted inHealth
What I should probably tell medical interns but almost never do
Media coverage of the long working hours of junior doctors has caused much discussion and argument among my peers. Articles such as this (where a journalist follows an intern on call) and this (where an intern claims her hours are illegal) have generated responses ranging from anger to sympathy. We know that internship is difficult, […]