• Health commentary,  Political commentary

    Gift of the Givers and a Vaccine Task Force … lessons to be learnt … revisited.

    It is worth reading my post of December 2021 again and then watching the link below to a recent Twitter post featuring a short input from Dr Imitiaz Sooliman. Well said Dr Sooliman! What we need is action and deeds by capable people as the answer to the challenges faced in South Africa today! https://twitter.com/nosh15/status/1550421503489019906?s=20&t=9PBoHEZ7i_MO8KdrdlWVJw

  • Health commentary,  Political commentary

    Refuse … a marker of government failure

    In March 2021 I wrote a post entitled, “Piles of refuse are a public health problem”, and reflected on the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. 18th July 2022 was the annual Mandela Day, a commemoration that is intended to be a “global call to action that celebrates the idea that each individual has the ability to make an impact”. Using the fact that Nelson Mandela fought for social justice for 67 years, people were urged this year to spend 67 minutes according the Mandela Day 2022 slogan to “Do what you can, With what you have, Where you are.” A video was posted on Twitter by the South Africa…

  • Health commentary,  Political commentary

    Liberal, socialist or neoliberal?

    A recent read of Francis Fukayama’s Liberalism and its Discontents set me thinking. For someone who is not a social scientist despite being a short book of 174 pages, it is a tightly written, challenging but stimulating read, which I can recommend. I have in fact read the book twice and continue to delve into various chapters in the book. Having in the past been taken to task for my application of the so-called neoliberal policies of budgetary austerity faced with a limited health budget, the book made me think whether I am indeed a liberal with socialist leanings, which I had always considered myself to be, or whether over…

  • ESCOM,  Health commentary,  Political commentary

    Winter of discontent … again!

    My first post on my health blog on 13th July 2020 had the title. “Winter of discontent”. I am again posting a piece with the same title as on that date. The country has since emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, which in July 2020 was still new to our experiences but dragged on with questionable measures taken by government over the subsequent almost two years with disastrous consequences for the lives of so many South Africans. At that time the country had experienced euphemistically termed “load shedding” but more aptly the failure of a vital state entity ESCOM to provide enough electricity to keep the wheels of industry turning and…