Thomas Johnson - Medical Blog

 This piece is about the racial composition of Groote Schuur Hospital’s patients and staffs. It was determined over numerous visits to its outpatients departments (OPD) and an in-patient ward. Direct observation is the primary method of research data gathering. Groote Schuur is one of Cape Town's two major teaching hospitals, the other is Tygerberg in Bellville. There are secondary facilities in the metro too. Patients are referred to Groote Schuur from all over the city and Western Cape. It is attached to the University of Cape Town's Medical School. It has the full range of specialist departments and facilities. It is the only public hospital in South Africa to have the Da Vinci Robotic Machine, one of a few in the country.  The hospital falls under the Western Cape Health Department (WCHD) whose head is Dr Keith Cloete (2020 to present). Dr Bhavna Patel is CEO and Dr Belinda Jacobs is manager: medical services (COO). The Western Cape has 5.5 million people and Cape Town met...

The US Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v Wade has unleased a deluge of criticism and outrage. Even the UN and world leaders added theirs.  The left and pro-choice groups and individuals are calling it an attack on humanity, women's rights and freedom of choice. Peter Kalmus in The Guardian wrote "the US supreme court made a devastating decision for humanity [sic]". (Typical American hubris to equate America with humanity.) Others say it's an opening round in an American civil war, a war that ironically the far-right has long predicted. The right are jubilant and say it's positive for white rights. Reaction in South Africa is muted. This is because while the decision is momentous to the US, it does not affect the status in SA allowing abortion. Also, international events receive little media attention. So it was by chance that on the John Maytham Show on CapeTalk Thursday June 30 I heard him discuss the ruling with regular guest, Daily Maverick journalist Re...

On Wednesday June 1, Western Cape Health Department's (WCHD) officer Dr Saadiq Kariem was interviewed on CapeTalk about access to chronic medications for WCHD patients. He spoke of two options: collection at a department facility or delivery to their homes. He made it sound so easy. He didn't mention, though, that at many community health clinics aka day hospitals there's a wait, often hours, to simply collect medicines even when clinics already have patients' current scripts on file. I myself tried that - the first time and last time I'd been to a clinic for collection - but left after two hours without even being attended to. I buy my meds which fortunately are not the expensive kind. People cannot take off hours every month merely to collect meds but the poor have no alternative. I gather problems may be clinic specific. On a related matter, during an after hours phone call that weekend, Groote Schuur Hospital's chief operating officer Dr Belinda Jacobs told ...

 In a leaked opinion written by Judge Samuel Alito, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade , the landmark decision that granted universal access to abortion in America. Alito found reasoning behind Roe v Wade was weak and reportedly referred abortion back to the legislature. Critics on the left are outraged, calling it an attack on reproductive rights and individuals’ rights to make decisions about their bodies.   However, in countries where abortion is allowed, it is legislated so the US Court’s decision is not unusual. In the US, conservative Republican-run states like Mississippi that brought the present challenge have been curtailing abortion through restrictive laws. But that leaves Democratic states that permit abortion.   While the Court’s decision is a setback for abortion, it is not banned so comments like late show host Trevor Noah who called it “a hostile takeover of America’s reproductive rights” are hysterical.   The left, who generally clai...

  Groote Schuur Hospital’s (GSH) Urology Clinic diagnosed a Cape Flats resident for a neuro-urological condition. She was under their care for four years and during this time put on multiple courses of medication.   The patient told me last year doctors abruptly said they had “misdiagnosed” – she did not have the condition after all. They offered no explanation or apology and casually discharged her. She now suffers from cortisone-induced diabetes , a potentially life-threatening chronic illness .   The patient wrote to GSH’s “superintendent”, likely CEO Dr Bhavna Patel.  She was called to a meeting and met Professor “Hickman”, the neuro-urology specialism head, and another doctor, likely part of the management team.   Without the patient mentioning it at any stage in email or meeting, Hickman mentioned the prospect of the patient taking legal action, apparently all they were concerned about.   She told them she understood misdiagnoses occur. All s...

 Long read. This is the text, edited and appended, of an affidavit submitted to the National Prosecutions Authority's (NPA) Western Cape office, the director of public prosecutions, in September 2021. (I’ve previously written about these cases in this blog.)   These cases, as with others reported over the years involving the Western Cape and national public health system, and other state organs, show a pattern, a modus vivendi, of endemic corruption, illegality and unethical conduct.  Nothing ever changes.  Then as now the NPA is reluctant to or won’t prosecute corruption, politically sensitive cases and government officials.    WC Health shields negligent unlicensed British doctor. NPA and Health Professions Council refuse to prosecute   In 2001 Western Cape Health Department (WCHD) and Groote Schuur Hospital management chief medical superintendent Drs Peter Mitchell, outpatients director Tunc Numanoglu, orthopaedics unit head Mike Solomons and ...