2010/03/25
THE two weeks that ended with the death of her one-year-old baby were the most painful that Nolonwabo Hlasela, of Nkululeko township in Barkly East, has ever experienced.
She had watched the body of her daughter, Asibabalo, who had grown into a lively little toddler, wilt progressively after being admitted to the town’s Cloete Joubert Hospital following a bout of diarrhoea in February.
Tears fell freely from Hlasela’s eyes as she recalled the events surrounding her baby’s death.
Hlasela had watched her child’s struggle for 15-days after initially being discharged from the hospital.
Little Asibabalo finally succumbed to her illness after being admitted to the same hospital a second time, only hours after she had showed signs of recovery.
“After her February 12 afternoon meal, she developed a runny stomach and started vomiting so I rushed to the doctor who got her admitted to hospital,” said Hlasela.
The mother and child spent a few days in hospital where Asibabalo was given stomach medicine before being discharged. But little Asibabalo was not her normal busy self when she arrived back at home. As the diarrhoea continued taking its toll on her body, she refused to eat.
“I continued to give her the medication, including the oral rehydration solutions they had provided, but she did not get better,” the mother said.
Hlasela told a Daily Dispatch team that spent four days in the area investigating baby deaths that her daughter, who never wandered far from her younger sister, loved to play.
“She was full of life and blabbered on in her baby language continuously throughout the day, resting only when asleep,” she said. But after returning home from hospital the toddler could not even summon the energy to get out of bed or off her mother’s lap.
“When blood appeared in her stools, I took her to the clinic and they referred me to hospital, where Asibabalo was put on a drip and given a meal, which seemed to revive her and give me hope,” she recounted.
Hlasela said the following morning it seemed as though the toddler’s condition had improved. She even lifted her head and showed much more enthusiasm for her breakfast .
“Just after seven (pm) that evening the nurses noticed that she was no longer breathing. She had died,” Hlasela said.
She had expected the nurses to tell her what had happened, in case she needed to treat her younger child, but they did not. “Right now I am comforted by the fact that my baby (her third born child) is on the breast, but I will always wonder what killed Asibabalo,” she said. - By NTANDO MAKHUBU
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