Carte Blanche

For years, the rural Eastern Cape was spared the worst of the crime wave engulfing other parts of the country. But early last year, that began to change. One of the country’s most pristine areas is now at the mercy of violent criminals. Several months ago, we visited some of the communities hardest hit by a series of home invasions, kidnappings and other attacks and found people determined to stay, but in desperate need of help from the police. Sadly, on a more recent trip, that resilience was clearly fading. For the full story, get DStv Stream Premium: https://bit.ly/DStv-Stream

There’s a growing crisis in our health system. Doctors and other medical professionals are leaving the country in their hundreds. The reasons are varied and all too familiar: better pay and working conditions abroad, safety, and political stability. But increasingly, doctors are being driven away by government’s plan to introduce the National Health Insurance (NHI), a scheme many say is simply unworkable. In this story, we visit Ireland, a favoured destination for our departing doctors, and a country - despite being relatively wealthy - grappling with its own public health issues. For the full story, get DStv Stream Premium: https://bit.ly/DStv-Stream

Dizziness, blurry vision, seizures and intense headaches. The true horror of sphenoid wing meningiomas appears to be only fully grasped by the people who have them growing inside their skulls, and the surgeons who try to help them. These invasive tumours often grow undetected for years, causing huge damage to the eyes and brain. In an investigation spanning two continents, Carte Blanche meets some of the meningioma patients who have had to undergo complex brain surgery to save their lives. Not only do they share this grisly experience, but they’ve also discovered that they were all on one of the world’s most widely available contraceptive injections - Depo-Provera - for decades. Now, new scientific evidence is suggesting a possible link between medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) - the synthetic hormone in Depo-Provera - and the development of brain tumours. Lawyers are preparing cases against the manufacturers of the so-called “jab” in several countries, including South Africa, after nine women with meningiomas approached them to consider action. Responding to growing pressure on this issue, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has recently recommended updating safety warnings about MPA-containing products to include the potential risk of meningioma. But for the women we have spoken to, this comes too little too late. For the full story, get DStv Stream Premium: https://bit.ly/DStv-Stream

Running a marathon is tough, but imagine doing it daily for over a month. That’s what friends Charles Raw and Matthew Murray did for charity. Our very own IronMac went to the Western Cape to meet them. For the full story, get DStv Stream Premium: https://bit.ly/DStv-Stream

It was pitched as a massive, heavy industrial project that would bring jobs and economic growth to Limpopo. But with the development phase yet to get off the ground, community members and environmentalists are raising the alarm. They’re warning that the project threatens one of the most bio-diverse parts of our country, including thousands of hectares of indigenous trees. Not only that, but millions have already been spent with apparently little to show for it. For the full story, get DStv Stream Premium: https://bit.ly/DStv-Stream