Going to pray, ending up in Malawi - Part 2

Continuation from Going to pray, ending up in Malawi - Part 1


Tuesday morning Deirdre and I get an early morning phone call from Francesca at the hospital. She has been up all night taking care of baby and also helped deliver four other babies. She says that they will not allow them to stay any longer at the current hospital without first going to the hospital in Mangochi. Francesca tells us, that the word is, that the Mangochi hospital has an incubator.

We sneak outside hoping that the guard dogs have been put away, fortunately they are now locked in their pen.

Deirdre begins to try to figure out other alternatives. We talk to an Australian nurse and also a worker at the orphanage who tells us that the orphanage has the only working incubator in the area but we cannot use it because the child still has living parents.

The reasons not to go to Mangochi begin to pile up:

• The Mangochi hospital has a bad reputation. It is government run hospital and they will have at least 10-20 times the patients and we should expect them to just say that we have to go to an even larger hospital in Blantyre.

• Our 24 hour passes for Malawi only allow us to travel 7 km from border, Mangochi is well beyond the allowed area.

• We discover that the tire on the truck is extremely low on air.

• We don’t have enough money for gas.

• It is not realistic to take the family this far away from their village. It will be impossible for any of the family unit to travel that far to help them.

• If they are admitted for any length of time it will result in two adults (Mama and Anganga) unable to fulfill their obligations at home in the village--child care, food preparation, taking care of home, field preparation, and collecting firewood. It is fairly unlikely for Mama and Anganga to agree to be away.

• We are also told that the rumored incubator in Mangochi does not work.

Before we go to Francesca we decide that we better go back towards the border to get at least a little bit of money so that we can maybe try to convince the Milibwanji hospital to sell us some formula. We did discover that we could get some formula from the orphanage but not until the following day during their weekly clinic.

Back to the border we go hoping that we are not stopped by the angry owner of the sheep that we hit the previous night. We were successful in exchanging almost $20 of currency.

We finally arrive at Milibwanji and Francesca is ready to immediately take off for Mangochi. Mama looks a lot better today. We quickly talk through all of the cons that are against us but we somehow end up loading everything up (including firewood) and driving toward Mangochi.

We are waved through the police check point without being asked for passports or drivers licenses.

Anganga appears to think that the car ride is an exciting adventure. We were concerned that she may vomit as we went down a curvy steep embankment since she has rode in very few vehicles.

We finally arrive at the Mangochi hospital and there are lines and lines and lines of patients outside and inside. Entering the hospital I am blasted with the smell of infection. At this point I am almost certain that we made the wrong choice in coming.

We again walk past all of the long lines of waiting patients directly into the premature nursery with 7 other babies. We see the rumored incubator but the room itself has to be hotter and more humid than any incubator.

Of course the doctor that we are supposed to talk to is not in today. But there is another doctor who seems very competent and there is a visiting doctor from Scotland. At one point I think there were at least 7 doctors, nurses and trainees in the sweltering room with us trying to help this little guy. I am certain many were trying their hardest not to laugh at the crazy costume this tiny baby has on which includes a space blanket and surgical mask hat.

Baby is looked at and the facility begins to get more promising. We are told that they will probably need to stay for 8 weeks—the time when baby should have been born.

We were able to talk to a few other mothers that had babies in the nursery. Fortunately a couple of these mothers speak chiyao, the same language the mother speaks. So she would at least have an interpreter once Deirdre left (none of the doctors or nurses speak chiyao). They also tell us that the caretakers usually receive 3 meals a day as long as there are not too many people.

Dierdre sits down and talks compassionately with mama about the options that are available. Mama immediately states that the final decision needs to be made by Anganga. (From my perspective, if nothing else transpires, throughout this whole ordeal I believe that Deirdre’s gentle chiyao has represented Christ to this family, other patients and hospital staff)

Anganga quickly agrees that she wants to try to stay. Her reasoning being that there have been so many resources invested in this baby over the past 24 hours that it would be a waste not to. Not to forget that in the middle of the conversation we are interrupted by what we think is a beggar but is actually pointing out our flat tire.

Deirdre goes with Anganga to teach her how to go to one of the phone bureaus people set up along the road so that she would be able to call Deirdre if anything happened.

By the time that we get back in Mama has been finally able to express some milk into a cup and is feeding baby with her own milk for the first time. Yeah!!

After praying together we gather all of the supplies and walk Anganga back to the caretaker/guardian kitchen and sleeping area. This walk to the caretaker area turns out to be at least a half mile away, even forcing us to walk through the local market. It seems crazy (like everything else is) to have to carry food this far just to care for a patient. Another new strong putrid smell is present at the caretaker area.

After getting some money together for gas and pumping the flat tire we are on our way back to Mozambique.

Malawi police checkpoint goes smoothly. We don’t get stopped by an angry sheep owner. Only hassle we had was at the Mozambique border where there were no guards present to open the gate for the truck. After waiting for quite some time and talking with immigration officer we proceeded through on our own. Guess who we met shortly up the road? The gatekeeper, who had to stress that his authority was bypassed, asked for our passports which we explained were at home. Following the debate we finally made it home to our own beds.

Hopefully we will be able to call and get updates from our new Scottish doctor friend. I will keep you posted.