Author: ModernMedia

Categories : Injury & TraumaTags :

South Africa is Bleeding to Death – and it’s Because of Guns

On By ModernMedia

It’s time to treat gun violence as a public health crisis

By Claire Taylor and Dean Peacock

Photo by Mat Napo on Unsplash

Every day in South Africa, 30 people are shot dead. Another 43 are shot and survive. That is more than one person shot every 20 minutes, around the clock, every single day of the year.

Those numbers are staggering, but they don’t begin to convey the cascade of harm that extends beyond the bodies that take the bullets.

Consider this experience of Professor Sithombo Maqungo, head of orthopaedic trauma at Groote Schuur Hospital. A grandmother admitted with a fractured hip is scheduled for urgent surgery on Friday morning. As she is being prepped for theatre, a gunshot victim is rushed in, bleeding out. He dies, but the grandmother’s surgery is postponed as the weekend’s trauma cases overwhelm the unit. By Monday, her condition has deteriorated — blood clots, pressure sores, pneumonia. She dies. Her death certificate will not record “gunshot wound” as the cause. But she is, without question, a victim of gun violence.

This is the ripple effect of gun violence. One shooting does not claim one life. It consumes blood supplies, monopolises theatre time, depletes Intensive Care Unit beds, exhausts healthcare teams, and drives skilled professionals — paramedics, nurses, surgeons — out of a system that can no longer support them.

South Africa’s healthcare system is treating gun violence, it is not preventing it. And that distinction matters enormously.

South Africa’s homicide rate is six times the global average, and guns are the dominant weapon in murder, attempted murder and aggravated robbery. Gun- related murders rose from 31% of all murders in 2020 to 44% by 2025. In several provinces, more people are shot than die on the roads, and in the Western Cape metropole, gunshots are the leading cause of spinal cord injury.

Young men are the primary victims and perpetrators of gun violence, but women are increasingly killed with guns. After declining, following the Firearms Control Act of 2000, gun-related femicide has surged — rising 84% between 2017 and 2020/21. By 2020/21, firearms accounted for more than one-third of all femicides, the highest proportion recorded.

Failures in firearm oversight and the growth in licensed guns have contributed to this reversal.

South Africa’s own evidence shows that regulation works. When the Act was properly enforced between 2000 and 2010 — guided by a five-pillar strategy that tightened regulations and reduced the availability of firearms — gun deaths halved, from 34 people shot dead daily to 18, while a woman died at the hands of an intimate partner every eight hours rather than every six hours because fewer women were shot and killed.

As oversight weakened through under-resourcing, corruption and policy drift, deaths rose again.

Today, licence applications are 66% higher than in 2016, with a record 166,603 new applications in 2024/25 alone — expanding the pool of legally held guns that leak into criminal hands or are used to commit crimes.

Illegal guns don’t come from nowhere

A common misconception is that tightening firearm laws is pointless because most crime guns are unlicensed. But illegal guns do not appear from nowhere: virtually every firearm in criminal circulation was once legally manufactured and legally owned before it was lost, stolen, or sold into the illegal market. In South Africa, civilians are by far the biggest source of this leakage. Over the past 20 years, civilians have lost or had stolen an average of seven guns for every one lost or stolen by the police, according to South African Police Service annual reports. In 2024/25 alone, civilians reported the loss or theft of 7,895 firearms — 22 a day — and this is almost certainly an underestimate, since some owners do not report losses for fear of being charged with negligence (police reported the loss/ theft of 572 service guns in this time).

Legal guns are also used directly to commit crimes, particularly in domestic violence, where murder-suicides involving licensed firearms are well documented.

Controlling legal gun ownership is not separate from addressing gun crime — it is the primary mechanism for doing so.

The public health approach

A key question in response to South Africa’s gun violence crisis is why gun violence remains outside the core public health frameworks — and what would change if it were treated as the preventable health crisis it is.

A public health approach treats guns the way we treat other products that harm health — like alcohol and tobacco — moving the response upstream from treating wounds to preventing them by tightening controls over availability.

It would give healthcare workers, overwhelmed by the relentless flood of trauma, the ability to recognise that gunshot wounds are not inevitable but a preventable crisis dependent on political will and policy intervention.

It would create concrete opportunities for the health system to play a proactive role in prevention — screening for firearm access during domestic violence consultations to support gun removal from high-risk situations; linking young gunshot victims in surgical wards with gang exit programmes; using admission and forensic pathology data to identify violence hotspots and inform targeted policing.

It would make the true costs of gun violence visible to policymakers and the public — revealing how much is spent managing a preventable crisis on limited resources and overstretched facilities that could instead go towards primary healthcare, cancer treatment, or diabetes care. And crucially, it grounds the debate in evidence rather than ideology — vital in a post-truth world where beliefs, opinions, and hearsay are routinely presented as fact.

This approach would also recognise that firearms are a product sold for profit that harms people’s health. Just as taxes on alcohol and tobacco reflect their social costs and reduce consumption, firearms, ammunition and shooting activities should be subject to equivalent measures. This would generate revenue that could fund the very health services overwhelmed by the consequences of gun violence.

This sharpens the policy response too. South Africa’s Firearms Control Amendment Bill, currently at Nedlac, proposes strengthening limits on who can own firearms, the type and number of firearms and ammunition rounds that can be held, and for which purposes.

Treating gun violence as a public health crisis strengthens the case for these reforms: it positions the Bill not as a security measure but as a health measure, demanding the same urgent political commitment we would expect for any leading cause of preventable death and injury.

International framework

None of this can happen in isolation. South Africa needs international frameworks, evidence, and solidarity — and that is where the World Health Organisation (WHO) comes in.

On 10 February 2026, the Global Coalition for WHO Action on Gun Violence launched with more than 100 organisations across 40 countries, including a range of South African organisations spanning healthcare, child and women’s rights, legal advocacy, violence prevention, and research. The coalition’s formation was accompanied by a stark finding: not one of the World Health Assembly’s 3,200-plus adopted resolutions explicitly mentions firearms.

This is a profound gap. The WHO sets global standards that shape national health policy across 194 member states. When it fails to treat gun violence as a health priority, countries like South Africa are left without the international frameworks, evidence, and technical guidance they need to act.

The WHO has done this before, with other contested, politically sensitive issues — tobacco, HIV/AIDS, alcohol, violence against women — each time moving them from marginal concerns into mainstream public health priorities with measurable results. A resolution on road safety catalysed legislative reform in more than 100 countries. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control contributed to lasting reductions in global tobacco use. The same is possible for gun violence.

The coalition is calling on the WHO to take ten key actions, including strengthening guidance on gun-related healthcare and supporting countries to use health systems as sites of gun violence prevention. South Africa — with some of the highest rates of gun violence in the world and a documented track record of evidence-based intervention — is uniquely placed not just to support this coalition, but to lead it by sponsoring a World Health Assembly resolution on firearm violence.

Our health professionals are close to breaking point. The surgeon who cannot cope with the relentless toll and resigns — leaving already stretched colleagues even more depleted. The paramedics who quit working in a war zone they never enlisted in. The medical students who leave the profession early, unable to bear the accumulated trauma of what they witness.

Gun violence is not inevitable. It is preventable. Treating it as a public health crisis is the only rational response to the evidence we already have.

Claire Taylor is from Gun Free South Africa, and Dean Peacock is from the Global Coalition for WHO Action. Views expressed are not necessarily those of GroundUp.

This is part of a series on gun violence. Previous article: I was shot in the head in 1986. I’m still paying the price

Republished from GroundUp under a Creative Commons licence.

Read the original article.

Categories : Metabolic Disorders RheumatologyTags :

Can GLP-1 Agonists ‘Change the Weather’ for Osteoarthritis?

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya

For GPs, solutions for treating osteoarthritis are frustratingly limited – it’s like the weather, everyone talks about it but nobody does anything about it. While standard care can relieve symptoms, there is currently no way to regenerate the actual lost cartilage in the joints. Some experimental treatments have proven successful in animal models and in petri dishes, but those are still many years away from being approved and available on the market.

But what if there was a currently available drug that could be repurposed? Since overweight and obesity worsen osteoarthritis symptoms by placing excess strain on weight-bearing joints, GLP-1 agonists such as semaglutide have proven that they can help by promoting rapid weight loss, as demonstrated by the STEP-9 trial.

Research into GLP-1s has now revealed that they may offer a whole constellation of other benefits, such as a potential reduction in stroke risk. Now, it appears that GLP-1 agonists may have a direct effect on osteoarthritis independent of weight loss. In our podcast, we look at a recently published article in Cell Metabolism that suggests that GLP-1 agonists might go beyond just the weight loss – promote actual cartilage regrowth by jumpstarting the joint cells’ energy processing pathways. We also explore some of the caveats of potentially using GLP-1 agonists in this way, such as a lack of understanding of the long term effects, as well as the well-documented occurrence of muscle loss.

Categories : VaccinesTags :

A Balanced and Pragmatic Approach to Vaccines in South Africa’s Public Tender Process

On By ModernMedia

Media Statement from Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association of South Africa (GBMSA)

Photo by Elen Sher on Unsplash

South Africa’s public tender framework has long recognised the importance of ensuring reliable, affordable, and uninterrupted access to essential medicines and vaccines, particularly for national immunisation programmes that protect children and vulnerable populations.

While local pharmaceutical manufacturing remains an important national objective, it is equally critical that public procurement decisions prioritise patient access, programme sustainability, and fiscal responsibility, especially in vaccine supply where scale, complexity, and affordability are decisive factors.

Vaccines require scale, specialisation and reliability

Vaccine manufacturing at national immunisation scale requires highly specialised infrastructure, advanced technical capability, strict regulatory compliance, and sustained capital investment. These requirements differ materially from those of many small‑molecule medicines.

“When it comes to vaccines, the overriding priority of the public tender system must be patient access. Scale, affordability, and uninterrupted supply are essential if South Africa is to expand and sustain its national immunisation programmes,” said Simo Masondo, Chairman of the Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association of South Africa (GBMSA).

Although South Africa has made meaningful progress in strengthening elements of local pharmaceutical capability, vaccine manufacturing readiness varies significantly across product categories, and certain capacities continue to evolve. In this context, national immunisation programme must be supported by a calibrated combination of local and global manufacturing supply, particularly where programme expansion, continuity and affordability are at stake.

A tender system that prioritises supply reliability and scale is essential to ensuring that immunisation program can reach more patients, more consistently and without interruption.

Competitive pricing enables broader immunisation coverage

Competitive pricing and demonstrable value for money remain central to the sustainability of South Africa’s public healthcare system. The National Department of Health has consistently emphasised procurement principles that include value for money, open and effective competition, accountability, and equity.

In vaccine procurement, competitive tender outcomes directly enable:

  • Broader immunisation coverage
  • Greater reach to children and underserved populations
  • More efficient use of limited public healthcare resources

Affordability is not a secondary consideration; it is a core enabler of access.

BRICS partnerships as strategic enablers of vaccine access

Trusted international partnerships, particularly within the BRICS ecosystem, play a critical role in supporting South Africa’s vaccine supply objectives. Long‑standing collaborations with partners in countries such as India have consistently demonstrated scale, reliability, regulatory compliance, and significant cost efficiencies in national tenders.

Indian vaccine manufacturers have historically delivered substantial savings to the South African government, in some cases exceeding R2 billion on a single vaccine programme, while supporting the expansion and sustainability of national immunisation coverage.

These partnerships should be viewed not as alternatives to local capability, but as essential enablers of immediate access, affordability, and programme continuity, particularly in vaccine categories where local scale is still developing.

A pragmatic and patient‑centric path forward

“A pragmatic, balanced approach allows South Africa to meet today’s immunisation needs while continuing to build capability over time. This is not a choice between localisation and access; it is about sequencing decisions responsibly so that patients always come first,” Masondo said.

Such an approach ensures:

  • Reliable and uninterrupted vaccine supply
  • Expanded immunisation reach for South African children
  • Responsible stewardship of public healthcare funds
  • Long‑term programme sustainability
  • Strengthened international cooperation within BRICS and other trusted partnerships

By prioritising access, affordability, and scale in vaccine procurement, South Africa can protect its immunisation programmes today while continuing to build manufacturing capability over time, without compromising patient outcomes or fiscal sustainability.

Categories : Cancer IT in HealthcareTags :

AI Tools for Cancer Rely on Shaky Shortcuts

On By ModernMedia
Small cell lung cancer cells (green and blue) that metastasised to the brain in a laboratory mouse recruit brain cells called astrocytes (red) for their protection. Credit: Fangfei Qu

Artificial intelligence tools are increasingly being developed to predict cancer biology directly from microscope images, promising faster diagnoses and cheaper testing. But new research from the University of Warwick, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, suggests that many of these systems may be using visual shortcuts rather than true biology – raising concerns that some AI pathology tools are currently too unreliable for real-world patient care.

“It’s a bit like judging a restaurant’s quality by the queue of people waiting to get in: it’s a useful shortcut, but it’s not a direct measure of what’s happening in the kitchen,” says Dr Fayyaz Minhas, Associate Professor and principal investigator of the Predictive Systems in Biomedicine (PRISM) Lab in the Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, and lead author of the study.

“Many AI pathology models are doing the same thing, relying on correlations between biomarkers or on obvious tissue features, rather than isolating biomarker-specific signals. And when conditions change, these shortcuts often fall apart.”

To reach this conclusion, the researchers analysed more than 8000 patient samples across four major cancer types – breast, colorectal, lung and endometrial – and compared the performance of leading machine learning approaches. While the models often achieved high headline accuracy, the team found this frequently came from statistical “shortcuts.”

For example, instead of detecting mutations in the cancer-associated BRAF gene, a model might learn that BRAF mutations often occur alongside another clinical feature such as microsatellite instability (MSI). The system then learns to use this combination of cues to predict BRAF status rather than learning the causal BRAF signal itself – meaning accurate cancer predictions work only when these biomarkers co-occur and become unreliable when they do not.

Kim Branson, SVP Global Head of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, GSK and co-author says, “We’ve found that predicting a BRAF mutation by looking at correlated features like MSI is often like predicting rain by looking at umbrellas – it works, but it doesn’t mean you understand meteorology.

“Crucially, if a model cannot demonstrate information gain above a simple pathologist-assigned grade, we haven’t advanced the field; we’ve just automated a shortcut. The roadmap for the next generation of pathology AI isn’t necessarily bigger models; it’s stricter evaluation protocols that force algorithms to stop cheating and learn the hard biology.”

When performance of AI models was assessed within stratified patient subgroups, such as only high-grade breast cancers or only MSI-positive tumours, accuracy fell substantially, revealing that the models were dependent on shortcut signals that disappear once confounding factors are controlled.

For certain prediction tasks, the performance advantage of deep learning over human-derived clinical information was modest. AI systems achieved accuracy scores of just over 80% when predicting biomarkers, compared with around 75% using tumour grade alone – a measure already assessed by pathologists.

Machine learning methods can still prove valuable for research, drug development candidate screening and for clinical triaging, screening, or supplementary decision support. However, the researchers argue that future AI tools must move beyond correlation-based learning and adopt approaches that explicitly model biological relationships and causal structure.

They also call for stronger evaluation standards, including subgroup testing and comparison against simple clinical baselines, before looking at deployment in routine care.

Dr Minhas concludes, “This research is not a condemnation of AI in pathology. It is a wake-up call. Current models may perform well in controlled settings but rely on statistical shortcuts rather than genuine biological understanding. Until more robust evaluation standards are in place, these tools should not be seen as replacements for molecular testing, and it is essential that clinicians and researchers understand their limitations and use them with appropriate caution.”

Source: University of Warwick

Categories : ImmunologyTags :

How Food Shortages Reprogram the Immune Response to Infection

On By ModernMedia
Human neutrophils visualised under a confocal microscope with cell membrane (red) and nucleus (blue). When faced with an infection during food scarcity, stress hormones trigger an immune response dependent on neutrophils, abundant cells that act as immediate, short-lived defenders. Credit: Thai Tran, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases

When food is scarce, stress hormones direct the immune system to operate in “low power” mode to preserve immune function while conserving energy, according to researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. This reconfiguration is crucial to combating infections amid food insecurity.

“Both famine and infectious disease have been with us throughout our evolutionary history and often occurred at the same time. Yet little is known about how nutrition affects the immune system,” said senior author Dr Nicholas Collins, an assistant professor of immunology, and a member of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and the Friedman Center for Nutrition at Weill Cornell.

The answer could be important in helping those who are food insecure and face the risk of infectious diseases every day. “Mounting an immune response against infections requires a lot of energy. We have discovered a coordinated system that upholds immune function by shifting the composition and metabolism of immune cells,” Dr Collins said.

The results, published in Immunity, found that mice on a calorie-restricted diet fought off infection as well as mice that were fully fed, but did so while using very little glucose. This was possible thanks to glucocorticoids, stress hormones known for their role in regulating blood glucose. The researchers determined that glucocorticoids acted like master conductors, reorganizing immune cells and their energy usage to provide a survival advantage.

The research was co-led by Luisa Menezes-Silva, a visiting graduate student from the University of São Paulo, Brazil; Dr Mingeum Jeong, a postdoctoral associate; and Dr Seong-Ji Han, a research associate, all in the Collins lab at Weill Cornell.

Shifting Priorities

To understand the complex interactions involved in an immune response during scarcity, Dr Collins and his team put mice on a 50% restricted-calorie diet and then exposed the animals to bacteria that infect the gut. The mice that were fed a standard diet experienced a metabolic crash – their blood glucose levels and body weight plummeted.

The researchers had expected this would happen to all the animals because mounting an immune response can consume up to 30% of the entire body’s fuel reserves. But in the calorie-restricted mice, the immune system appeared to be functioning perfectly well without using much glucose.

To unravel this enigma, the researchers inventoried the immune cells of the infected animals and discovered that T cells, which normally target invading microbes, were depleted in the calorie-restricted mice. Instead, short-lived neutrophils, which serve as the body’s first responders to infection, were ramped up to twice the normal amount and had measurably enhanced pathogen-killing abilities. The cells seemed to be operating in energy-saving mode, consuming much less glucose than neutrophils from well-fed animals.

“So, this hormone rewires the immune system to eliminate the infection while keeping blood sugar from dropping, which rescues the calorie-restricted animals from malnutrition,” said Dr Collins.

Stress Hormones Lead the Charge

The researchers are breaking new ground by outlining how a sudden fall in food intake triggers glucocorticoid levels to rise, resulting in two major shifts. First, the body repositions certain immune cells – especially naïve T cells – into the bone marrow, which becomes a kind of “safe house” for when the cells are needed. Second, during an infection, glucocorticoids tilt the immune response away from energy‑intensive T cells toward neutrophils, abundant cells that act as immediate, short-lived defenders.

Beyond clearing a current infection, glucocorticoids prepare the immune system for repeat encounters with infectious agents. While the hormones direct killer T cells to stand down and neutrophils to step up, they also ensure memory T cells are preserved for future confrontations.

“Glucocorticoids reduce the immune cells that use up the most energy, while saving those that are critical for protection against future infections,” Dr Collins said. “So, these hormones are involved in every step of the infection-fighting process.”

“Since glucocorticoids are induced not only by nutrient restriction but also by any form of stress, our findings might have broader applicability,” said Dr Collins.

In the meantime, he and his team plan to explore what causes the system to fail when the degree and duration of calorie restriction are more severe. “We looked at reduced food intake over three weeks,” he said. “But when you cross the threshold into malnutrition, the whole system breaks down.” Understanding this collapse could inform better strategies to prevent infectious disease and infection-driven malnutrition in vulnerable populations.

Source: Weill Cornell Medicine

Categories : NeurologyTags :

Brain Stimulation can Nudge People to Behave Less Selfishly

On By ModernMedia

Alternating current stimulation in the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain promoted altruistic choices

Photo by ROCKETMANN TEAM

Stimulating two brain areas, nudging them to collectively fire in the same way, increased a person’s ability to behave altruistically, according to a study published February 10th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Jie Hu from East China Normal University in China and colleagues from University of Zurich in Switzerland.

As parents raise their kids, they often work to teach them to be kind and to share, to think about other people and their needs – to be altruistic. This unselfish attitude is critical if a society is going to function. And yet, while some people grow up to devote themselves to others, other people still manage to grow up selfish.

To understand what brain areas and connections might underlie individual differences in altruism, the researchers asked 44 participants to complete 540 decisions in a Dictator Game – offering to split an amount of money with someone else, which they then got to keep. Each time, the participant could make more or less money than their partner, but the amounts varied. As the participants played the game, the researchers stimulated their brains with transcranial alternating current stimulation over the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain. The stimulation was set up to make the brain cells in those areas fire together in repetitive patterns, training them all to either gamma or alpha oscillation rhythms.

The authors found that during the alternating current stimulation designed to enhance the synchrony of gamma oscillations in the frontal and parietal lobes, the participants were slightly more likely to make an altruistic choice and offer more money to someone else – even when they stood to make less money than their partner. Using a computational model, the researchers showed that the stimulation nudged the participants’ unselfish preferences, making them consider their partner more when they weighed each monetary offer. The authors note that they did not directly record brain activity during the trials, and so future studies should combine brain stimulation with electroencephalography to show the direct effect of the stimulation on neural activity. But the results suggest that altruistic choices could have a basis in the synchronized activity of the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain.

Coauthor Christian Ruff states, “We identified a pattern of communication between brain regions that is tied to altruistic choices. This improves our basic understanding of how the brain supports social decisions, and it sets the stage for future research on cooperation – especially in situations where success depends on people working together.”

Coauthor Jie Hu notes, “What’s new here is evidence of cause and effect: when we altered communication in a specific brain network using targeted, non-invasive stimulation, people’s sharing decisions changed in a consistent way – shifting how they balanced their own interests against others’.”

Coauthor Marius Moisa concludes, “We were struck by how boosting coordination between two brain areas led to more altruistic choices. When we increased synchrony between frontal and parietal regions, participants were more likely to help others, even when it came at a personal cost.”

Provided by PLOS

Categories : OphthalmologyTags :

Scientists Engineer ‘Living Eye Drop’ to Support Corneal Healing

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Victor Freitas on Pexels

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers have developed an early-stage, experimental “living eye drop” that uses a naturally occurring eye bacterium to support corneal wound healing.

The proof-of-‑concept study, published in Cell Reports, demonstrates that the harmless eye-dwelling microbe Corynebacterium mastitidis can be genetically modified to secrete an anti-inflammatory therapeutic that promotes healing following corneal injury in a mouse model.

“This is the first demonstration that a microbe that lives on the ocular surface could be engineered to deliver a therapeutic that improves eye health,” said senior author Anthony St. Leger, associate professor of ophthalmology and of immunology and a faculty member of the UPMC Vision Institute. “It opens the door to the idea of ‘living medicine’ for the eye – something you apply once, and it stays, protects and helps the tissue heal.”

Because tears continually wash medications away, treating ocular surface disease often requires multiple daily applications of eye drops. This can limit the effectiveness of therapies for conditions such as corneal abrasions or dry eye disease.

To explore an alternative delivery method, the Pitt team engineered C. mastitidis, a benign bacterium that naturally resides under the eyelid, to continuously secrete cytokine interleukin10 (IL10). In mice, corneas that were gently scratched and treated with the engineered bacteria healed faster than those treated with regular bacteria or saline. When the IL10 receptor was blocked, this benefit disappeared – confirming the therapeutic effect was IL10-dependent.

The researchers also created a version of the microbe that releases human IL10, which improved wound closure in lab-grown cells that make up the outermost layer of human cornea and reduced inflammatory signaling in human immune cells. These studies offer an initial indication that the approach could eventually be adapted for use in people, though substantial development remains.

“What makes this exciting is that the system is modular,” St. Leger explained. “We built it so you can swap in different genes – different cytokines, growth factors or other proteins – to tailor the therapy to specific eye diseases.”

Though promising, the technology is still in early development. The researchers note that many steps must be completed before any clinical translation is possible, including developing built-in “off switches”  to safely and reliably remove or deactivate the engineered bacteria after they are no longer needed.

Source: University of Pittsburgh

Categories : Expert Opinion HospitalsTags :

Addressing Nursing Challenges in South Africa Through Practical Training and Ongoing Development

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Thirdman

By Donald McMillan, MD at Allmed

The South African healthcare system is currently facing a period of intense pressure. Between staffing shortages and a rise in medical legal claims, the gap between basic nursing education and the actual demands of patient care is a major concern. To improve patient safety and support our healthcare workers, we must focus on practical, hands-on experience and constant skill building.

Why nursing challenges matter in South Africa

Nursing errors are rarely the fault of one person. In South Africa, they are usually the result of a system under strain. Nurses are dealing with overcrowded wards, long shifts, and a very high number of patients with complex conditions like HIV and TB. When staff are exhausted and overworked, the risk of making a mistake increases.

These errors have a massive impact. For patients and their families, it leads to a loss of trust. For hospitals, it leads to expensive legal battles. South Africa is currently dealing with billions of Rands in medical claims, but this is money that should be spent on better equipment and hiring more people. If we want a stronger healthcare system, we must reduce the risks that lead to these errors in the first place.

Hands-on training makes the difference

Nursing education has traditionally leaned heavily on theoretical learning, but knowing the theory of a procedure is very different from doing it in a busy hospital. Practical, skills-based training is what helps a nurse transition safely from the classroom to the ward.

Donald McMillan, MD at Allmed

One of the most effective tools for this is simulation-based training. This involves using specialised training rooms that look like real hospital wards, complete with advanced mannequins that can mimic medical emergencies. Here, nurses can practice critical skills like inserting drips, reading ECGs, or managing emergency care in a safe environment. This allows them to build confidence and “muscle memory” before they ever treat a real patient. This type of training is essential for preparing nurses for the high-pressure reality of South African clinics.

Continuous professional development builds confidence

Medicine is always changing. New treatment guidelines, technologies, and medicines are introduced all the time, changing the way care is delivered. Continuous Professional Development (CPD) helps nurses keep pace with these changes, ensuring their skills remain relevant, their knowledge up to date, and their patients receive the best possible care throughout every stage of their careers.

However, CPD is about more than just following rules; it is about building professional confidence. When nurses have the chance to learn new things and specialise in areas like intensive care or pharmacology, they feel more capable and valued. In a country where many nurses choose to work overseas, providing these opportunities for growth at home is a great way to keep our best talent in South Africa.

A systemic approach for better care

Enhancing the quality of nursing care in South Africa requires a coordinated, multi-stakeholder approach. Training institutions, hospital administrators, and regulatory bodies must collaborate to create an ecosystem that supports the nurse at every career stage. This systemic approach should focus on three specific areas:

  • Integrated mentorship: Establishing formal programmes where expert clinicians provide real-time bedside teaching to new graduates.
  • Accredited upskilling: Providing accessible pathways for nurses to specialise in critical areas such as ICU, neonatal care, and oncology.
  • Technological alignment: Utilising digital tools to track competency levels and identify specific areas where additional training is required.

By making practical training and ongoing learning a priority, we do more than just prevent mistakes. We empower our nurses to be the skilled professionals they want to be. When nurses are competent and confident, they provide better care, which helps rebuild public trust and makes the South African healthcare system stronger for everyone.

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

Kaitlin and Lihle’s Fight Against a Rare Blood Disease

On By ModernMedia
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

At 25, Kaitlin should be living independently. At 18, Lihle should be finishing school. Instead, both are fighting for their lives against aplastic anaemia (AA), a rare blood disease that leaves patients vulnerable to infections, uncontrolled bleeding, and severe anaemia. A stem cell transplant gives approximately 80% of patients a real chance at recovery, but for around 70% of those patients, that match will not come from within their family. It will come from a generous stranger.

“AA strikes hardest between 15 and 25 – the years nobody expects to spend fighting for their life,” says Palesa Mokomele, Head of Community Engagement and Communication at DKMS Africa. “We want South Africans to understand that registering as a stem cell donor is a simple act that could give someone like Kaitlin or Lihle their life back. Every person who registers increases their chances of finding a match.”

A long road to the right diagnosis: Kaitlin’s story

For years, nobody could tell Kaitlin from KwaZulu-Natal what was wrong. She experienced prolonged and excessive bleeding and severe fatigue, which was repeatedly misattributed to gynaecological issues. She kept going back to the hospital and kept being sent home. It was only in August 2025, when her condition deteriorated dramatically, and the bleeding would not stop despite ongoing treatment, that she was finally referred to a haematologist. A bone marrow biopsy told them what years of tests had missed: Kaitlin had AA.

Before this, she was working full-time and living independently. Today, she cannot work. She cannot manage basic daily tasks. She requires weekly blood transfusions simply to stay alive. Medication trials have yielded no response, and her doctors have been clear: a stem cell transplant is her only path to recovery.

Through it all, Kaitlin has held on. “I draw strength from my faith and from the people I love most – my nephews and siblings, who show up for me even on the hardest hospital days. I just want my life back, and a matching donor could make that possible.”

Sudden illness, endless resilience: Lihle’s story

Lihle was 14 years old when his life changed overnight. It started with severe nosebleeds in November 2021. Then one night, the bleeding became uncontrollable. He lost consciousness. After two months in hospital, the diagnosis came: Severe Aplastic Anaemia (SAA). That same year, his father passed away.

The eldest of four children, Lihle grew up fast. Hailing from Butterworth in the Eastern Cape and raised in Carletonville, Gauteng, he has always felt the weight of being the firstborn – the one his younger siblings look up to. Their mother cares for them all – while also carrying the emotional weight of losing her husband and watching her son fight for his life.

Lihle shares that he is determined to finish his education, set an example, and one day return to the football pitch. Like Kaitlin, all he needs is a matching donor to make that possible.”

How you can help

“No family should have to face what Kaitlin’s and Lihle’s are going through – knowing that a cure exists, but that the donor hasn’t been found yet. For patients from Black, Coloured and Indian/Asian backgrounds, that search is even harder, because the registry does not yet reflect the diversity of our population. We are calling on all South Africans to register. It costs nothing. It takes minutes. And it could mean everything,” concludes Mokomele.

Signing up could be the most important thing you ever do. If you are aged 17 – 55 and in good health, please register today at: https://www.dkms-africa.org/save-lives

Categories : Hospitals IT in HealthcareTags :

Robotic Medical Crash Cart Eases Workload for Healthcare Teams

On By ModernMedia
Researcher demo-ing an early prototype of the robotic medical crash cart. Credit: Cornell Tech

Healthcare workers have an intense workload and often experience mental distress during resuscitation and other critical care procedures. Although researchers have studied whether robots can support human teams in other high-stakes, high-risk settings such as disaster response and military operations, the role of robots in emergency medicine has not been explored.

Enter Angelique Taylor, the Andrew H. and Ann R. Tisch Assistant Professor at Cornell Tech and the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. She is also an assistant professor in emergency medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and director of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Lab (AIRLab) at Cornell Tech.

In a pair of articles published at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) in August 2025, Taylor and her collaborators at Weill Cornell Medicine, associate professor Kevin Ching and assistant professor Jonathan St. George, described research on their new robotic crash cart (RCC) — a robotic version of the mobile drawer unit that holds supplies and equipment needed for a range of medical procedures.

“Healthcare workers may not know or may forget where all the various supplies are located in the cart drawers, and often they’re kind of shuffling through the cart,” Taylor said. This can cause delays during emergency procedures that require iterative tasks with precise timing, exacerbating medical errors and putting patients at risk, she noted.

To create the RCC, Taylor and her team outfitted a standard cart with LED light strips, a speaker, and a touchscreen tablet integrated with the Robot Operating System. This middleware connects computer programs to robot hardware, enabling them to work together to provide users with verbal and nonverbal cues.

During an emergency procedure, a user can request the location of a supply on the tablet. Then the lights around the drawer with that supply blink, or a spoken instruction plays through the speaker. Users can also receive prompts to remind them about necessary medications and recommend supplies.

In their article, “Help or Hindrance: Understanding the Impact of Robot Communication in Action Teams,” Taylor’s team conducted pilot studies of the RCC. One pilot involved 84 participants, aged 21 to 79, about half of whom had a clinical background. Working in groups of 3 to 4, they conducted a series of simulated resuscitation procedures with a manikin patient using three different carts: a RCC with blinking lights for object search and spoken task reminders, a RCC with blinking lights for task reminders and spoken language for object search, or a standard cart.

The team found that participants preferred the RCC that provided verbal and nonverbal cues over no cues with the standard cart — rating it lower in terms of workload and higher in usefulness and ease of use.

“These results were exciting and achieved statistical significance, suggesting that the use of a robot is beneficial,” said Taylor. The article, by Taylor, Ph.D. student Tauhid Tanjim, and colleagues at Weill Cornell, was a Kazuo-Tanie Paper Award finalist, an honor given to the top three papers in their category at the conference.

In the second article, “Human-Robot Teaming Field Deployments: A Comparison Between Verbal and Non-verbal Communication,” the research team began testing the RCC under more realistic conditions. Participants were healthcare workers from across the United States, and actors played frantic family members during the simulations.

Similar to the pilot studies, Taylor, along with colleagues at Cornell and Michigan State University, found that the RCC reduced participant workload, depending on whether the robot provided verbal or non-verbal cues. However, they evaluated robots with only one type of cue, not both, and identified room for improvement, particularly in the robot’s visual cues. They are now studying healthcare workers’ impressions of an RCC with multimodal communication.

Taylor hopes that other research teams will start exploring how robots can support healthcare teams in critical care settings. To that end, Taylor and her colleague presented an article at the February 2025 Association for Computing Machinery/IEEE International Conference that offers a toolkit for researchers to build their own RCC.

By Carina Storrs, freelance writer for Cornell Tech.

Source: Cornell Tech