Mark Heywood

The 2019 report of Health Market Inquiry shows that South Africa's private healthcare overservices its clients, offers variable patient experiences, and varying quality of care.

In the debates about National Health Insurance (NHI), the focus has been on the envisaged cost and affordability. What is constantly overlooked are the social and financial costs of a growing burden of preventable diseases.

The place where the land ends and the sea starts is a place of joy and defeat, life and what Nick Cave calls the ‘fucked-up cosmic mischief', which can intrude suddenly on everyday life to remind us that there's only a terribly thin line that separates living and dying, security and tragedy, happiness and loneliness, even at the best of times.

The Special Investigating Unit seeks to recover R390-million from influential businessperson Robert Gumede and his companies for allegedly fraudulent behaviour.

There is a critical need for public sector and private sector healthcare reform that transcends political posturing and vested interests, and prioritises the health needs of all South Africans.

Under the Constitution, the duty to ensure that everyone has sufficient food and water falls squarely upon the government. And it’s here that we look most desperately for leadership.

Asked what he thinks parkrun represents for South Africa, the response from Bruce Fordyce is short and simple: “The chance to help South Africans become a happier and healthier nation.”

In an era when many people are turning a blind eye to the human horrors of a genocide, are complicit in ecocide and normalising the abnormal every day, there's clearly something going badly wrong with human compassion and solidarity. To rediscover our connections with one another, we need also to rediscover our connections to the earth.

Investigative and forensic reports into the funds disbursed by the Gauteng Department of Social Development have flagged serious concerns over fraud, corruption and evidence that money meant to alleviate poverty never reached those in need.