Category: The Outlier
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Paris 2024: South Africa’s Olympic journey in 7 charts
Paris 2024 – or, officially, the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad – gets underway on Friday, 26 July. It will be South Africa’s 21st Games, its ninth since the ban against its participation was lifted in 1992. South African athletes have won a total of 38 medals in the post-apartheid era – 11 gold, 18…
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Rushed and chaotic: The Life Esidimeni tragedy, in charts
In September 2015, the Gauteng department of health decided to end a contract with Life Esidimeni, a group of specialised private psychiatric care hospitals. The decision was part of a wider plan to deinstitutionalise mental healthcare users in the province by placing them into non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in communities. It was also to cut costs. What transpired was a poorly planned,…
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Death trap: Timeline of the Life Esidimeni tragedy
Life Esidimeni, a psychiatric hospital, had been contracted for 30 years by the Gauteng department of health for the long-term, specialised care of mental healthcare patients. Despite warnings from experts, the department ended the contract in September 2015. Its aim was to deinstitutionalise the patients and save costs by moving them to non-profit organisations. What…
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SA is embracing hybrids, but all-electric and plug-in sales lag
South Africans are slowly warming to hybrid vehicles but not to fully electric or plug-in hybrids. More than 6,000 hybrid vehicles were sold in 2023, 10 times the number sold in 2021. That is still just a fraction of the approximately 350,000 traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) passenger vehicles sold every year. FULL STORY +…