- I’m so grateful for all the support we have received from our friends, especially on the occasion of Mother’s Day. There is no better way to honor your mother than to help a mother who wants to give her baby all of the love and care that every mother wants to give to her child.
Let me share with you yet one more reason that makes me happy to have built my hospital. This is Baby Zuber. He was born at home approximately six weeks ago. He was born in very poor health and has had trouble breathing since birth. The only reason he has lasted as long as he has is because he has a very devoted and loving mother who has given him around-the-clock attention. But Baby Zuber developed pneumonia and even his mother’s tender loving care was not enough, so she brought him to our hospital. We discovered that Baby Zuber was born with a defect where his heart is located on the wrong side of his chest.
We also found burn marks on his chest where a traditional healer tried to fix the problem. Please understand that his parents did not do this to be cruel to their child but in our society many simply do not know any better and often believe that “fire and disease do not stay in the same place.” His mother was caring for him the best way she knew.
Baby Zuber is now on oxygen as we try to figure out the best way to treat him. He needs a cardiac echo but we don’t have the necessary equipment at our hospital. The test can be done in a diagnostic center in Hargeisa but so far he has been too sick to transport to another facility. We hope that after the pneumonia subsides, we can have an echo performed to help our doctors have a better sense of his condition, and can then arrange to have him taken to a hospital in Ethiopia that has a dedicated cardiac unit where his tiny heart can be repaired.
Needless to say, he is being treated at our hospital free of charge and we are also ready to help with the cost of transporting him to Ethiopia.
Baby Zuber’s case would be tragic in any corner of the world, but it is especially moving here in Somaliland where we don’t have health insurance, we don’t have specialized hospitals, we don’t have cardiac surgeons and we don’t have resources to help every child who needs assistance. What we do have is a dedicated team of health workers and mothers who love their babies just as much as mothers do everywhere.
Here attached are pictures of baby Zuber with his loving mother.
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