On June 8th the Police brought a premature baby to Amecet. The baby was born in a health centre in the village. According to the letter, a young girl and her mother came to the health centre saying that she had an abortion after 7 months of pregnancy, She was admitted and examined and her labour started. the baby came out alive, a little baby boy. The mother and the grandmother disappeared and the baby was abandoned.. So the health centre called the Police and the Police brought the little premature born baby to Amecet.
The baby was small, and weak. His weight was 2 kg. We took him in, gave him a nice warm bath and made sure he was warm. We went with him to the clinic, next door. They saw him and prescribed IV medication and feedings every two hours. We try to feed him by bottle, but he was too weak to suckle, so we had to give him a NG tube. We decided to lay him in our medical room instead with the other baby's in the baby room.
After some time we could remove the NG tube, because he was able to drink himself and we didn't want him to loose his suckling reflex. We still kept him in the medical room and gave him the name Richard. We also started him on the drugs against HIV. When we get children whose mother is HIV+ or children who were abandoned and we don't know the HIV status of the mother, we start the children on Nevirapine medicine. When the child is one month old, we take the child to the hospital for a PCR HIV test. We did that also for Richard, because we didn't know the status of the mother. The PCR test came back negative, so Richard was free of HIV!!
In the meantime, the Police tried to find the mother of the baby and they succeeded. They found the mother and they put her in the cells. There was communication with our social workers and they went to the village to meet the mother and the grandmother. By that time the Police had released the mother and she was at home. She at first refused to come out the hut, refused to talk and only the grandmother was open to talk. They promised to come and see the baby in Amecet. And they did, 2 weeks later they came, the grandmother was holding Richard and seemed to be happy to see him, but the mother was not interested, she didn't want to carry him and she didn't say anything...
It was not all so easy with Richard. Several times we had to bring him to the doctor, he had diarrhoea, then malaria and he has been on several medications. But he looked much better, and he had gained! We took him back to the baby room and we really thought he would make it.
Until 5 days ago....... He had diarrhoea, we took him to the doctor, malaria test was done, negative, but he had all the symptoms, so the doctor felt we should not wait and start the anti-malaria medication. The diarrhoea was less, but then, last night, he started to have trouble with breathing. In the morning, we got the doctor to see him in Amecet. he crashed, was put on oxygen, they tried to get a blood sample to see if there was a sepsis in the blood, but they couldn't get any blood. he was now very pale, and his little heart just stopped, Richard was gone.....
We were shocked, we had never thought that would happen. Some staff cried for this sweet little boy who was laying so peaceful in his bed.
We called the family, Simon went to get a small coffin, and we were able to get the death certificate from the doctor, who was actually right there when he left us. Around 12 o'clock we left with the little body in the coffin, on our way to the village to bring Richard to his last resting place. Two relatives who lived in Soroti, joined us and this was helpful to show the way to the home. It was around 1,5-hour drive and when we came there, we gave the coffin over to the family. We all sat down, and I gave a report to tell them what had happened during the 2 months Richard had been with us in Amecet. They all listened, I gave the medical book and the death certificate, nobody had any questions for us. The mother was again in the hut, didn't come out, nobody cried, and nobody seemed to be upset. It felt strange, no emotions at all. We left the family to bury the baby and went on our way back to Soroti.
I was suddenly thankful for the tears of our staff, for their emotions over this little baby. I was thankful that we could care for this little boy those 2 months. That we could care for him, feed him, bath him and love and cuddle him. That we are sad about his death and shocked that it was so sudden and so fast. That it was painful to see him gone... We know that Jesus will carry him in His arms, that Richard will be welcomed in Heaven and that there will no more injections or feeding tubes. He is HOME!!!!
Our last picture of Richard
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