SUMMARY
South Africa is struggling to cope with the Aids pandemic. But because of a critical shortage of doctors and nurses, people are dying unnecessarily from HIV/Aids. The World Health Organization's minimum standard is 20 doctors for every 100,000 patients but this standard is quite far from accomplishment. For example, Lesotho has five, Malawi has two and Mozambique has 2.6, MSF says. Most donors fund new health clinics but don't pay wages for nurses, so it's hard for them to work. In some areas, although drugs are available, there is nobody to administer them. Also there are many empty clinics - empty because at the end of the day there is no available treatment there, so patients prefer to stay at home and die there. The solution is to improve working conditions and give nurses the power to prescribe drugs that until now has been the exclusive responsibility of doctors. Of course it takes risks but there seem to be no choice in this time.
BY BBC NEWS 0f May 24, 2007
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