Millions of South Africans suffer from chronic pain, but experts say the country is doing “a terrible job” of managing it, writes Sean Christie for GroundUp.
One of the afflicted is retired psychiatric social worker Soghra Walton (73), who has lived most of her life in pain. She has suffered persistently since her late 20s, seen more physicians than she can count, and visited three private pain clinics, without finding any sustained relief.
Health professionals typically differentiate between two broad categories of pain: acute pain, which is short and intense, the type of pain one would experience after surgery, and chronic pain, lasting more than three to six months, and sometimes…
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Fun South African Fact: South Africa is the only country in the entire world that has voluntarily abandoned its nuclear weapons programme.
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Fun South African Fact: The Karoo region in the Western Cape is home to some of the best fossils of early dinosaurs. In fact, it is estimated that some 80% of the mammalian fossils found to date were found in the Karoo.