Derek Watts (Carte Blanche presenter): "Babies are born at Bloemfontein Academic virtually everyday. Some come into this world fighting fit and others less so. And here in the neonatal ICU - apart from the specialist attention - it's up to very fancy medical equipment like this to keep them alive. Many of these babies weigh less than a kilogram - comfortably fitting into the palm of my hand."
60 000 babies are born in the Free State every year and when born too prematurely their fight for survival is critical...
Dr David Griessel (Neonatalogist): "Human babies are anyway born too early in general - even full term babies. So a baby of 1kg has got an immature brain, immature gut, immature lungs, immature heart and immature temperature regulation. So one can definitely say that there are many barriers to survival."
Dr David Griessel is a consulting neonatologist at Universitas Hospital where tiny ICU beds - costing in the region of R850 000 each - are in very short supply.
Derek: "If we just take an example of a baby weighing under a kilo and you have not got a bed for them - what happens to that baby?"
Dr Griessel: "We have got numbers of babies that we turn away. That equates to about 80 to a 100 babies a year."
Derek: "Turned away to die?"
Dr Griessel: "Yes. So it's a little like playing Russian roulette - if you have not got a place or a bed for the baby, then obviously there is not much that you can do."
Currently there are only 14 ICU beds, which serve thousands of premature babies born at Universitas Hospital. The plan is to raise R15-million by 2010 to buy 16 more beds in order to cater for the demand.
Derek: "This baby is eight weeks premature and weighs about 1.54kg. Fortunately there is an ICU bed available to him if he needs it. But that's not the case for many babies born here in the Free State - underweight and struggling to survive."
These are the beds of hope - the special ICU beds that give premature babies who certainly wouldn't have survived a few decades ago a fighting chance. But these life savers don't come cheap - you don't get much change from a million rand for just one of them.
Dr Griessel: "Beds like these represent hope, but also definitely life - if we do not have a bed for these babies it means we cannot care for them. So people who donate, donate to our most precious resource in SA, which is children."
Professor Andre Venter is Chief Specialist of Paediatrics and Head of Department at Universitas Hospital.
Derek: "Andre, you must be at times part of that decision making process where a baby is turned away?"
Professor Andre Venter (HOD: Universitas Hospital): "Yes. I think by the time that I get involved it's usually quite radical. But in a day-to-day functioning, this is something that happens all the time. We are far below even meeting basic needs at the moment, as far as intensive care and high care needs are concerned."
Baby Reese Wiggett was born just over four months ago. She weighed only 800g when her first-time parents, Chantelle and Sydney, welcomed her into the world. And she got the very best attention 24-hours around the clock here in ICU.
Dr Griessel: "She weighed around 880grams, and she was here on a ventilator for around three months. At the end they decided it was probably futile to go on."
Sadly little Reese passed away just one week after we met her.
Derek: "What is your take on the Carte Blanche Make a difference' campaign?"
Prof Venter: "I think it's one of the most exciting things that has come our way. One of the problems we have in the Free State is that I think sometimes we are a little bit of God's forgotten children down here. I think it's a wonderful opportunity for us, and I'm hoping that it's going to be a very successful venture for us."
Bloemfontein Academic offers secondary care to over 25 000 children in the southern regions of the Free State and is also responsible for tertiary care to nearly 1 million children from surrounding areas, including Lesotho.
[Carte Blanche 25 July 2008] This is Hope a month ago. She was admitted to Universitas when her lungs collapsed after whooping cough developed into pneumonia.
Derek: "After five weeks in ICU, it's a very different story today. Hope is in a general ward, she's on full-feed, taking no antibiotics, and well on her way to a full recovery."
Hope's health now is not serious enough for ICU and so she is being cared for in a general ward. With her condition she should have been in a high care ward from the start.
Professor David Stones heads up the Department of Paediatric Oncology and Haematology.
Professor David Stones (Paediatric oncologist): "High care is basically between general ward and ICU. So the amount of support of treatment with ventilators is not done. But it's intensive monitoring of patients via saturation monitors, blood pressure, pulses, respiration, as well as normal intakes and outputs."
Derek: "So basically, if something goes wrong you are on to it straight away?"
Prof Stones: "Yes. The idea in a high care unit is that you put your patients that you think might run into problems - you put them there, and you pick up the problems early."
Margaret Mangana and her daughter Zanele traveled 30km several times a week while she received treatment for cancer.
Margaret Mangana: "I think when there was a high care unit - she was not going to go to ICU - in ICU she cannot stay for a long time."
Derek: "So you only had the alternative of coming to a ward or going home? And that's what was missing, and according to the doctors that's possibly what led to the complications?"
Margeret: "Ya."
This is just an empty shell of what used to be an intensive care unit. It's still got all the emergency plugs and the oxygen outlets - what it doesn't have is the beds and the monitoring equipment. Now, a major cash injection could transform this into a much needed high care ward."
Derek: "You've got an idea or a dream for this new ward?"
Prof Venter: "That's right. We are also separately busy organising to have the ward's shell upgraded. But of course that doesn't help the patients until you have what the patients need upgraded."
Derek: "And Andre, you needed more than a million rand for that ward?"
Prof Venter: "Remember there is the shell and technology but what you have to put in there is not even encountered in that money yet. Scary enough, the budget is now more like R5-million."
Derek: "Bloemfontein Academic is going to need a lot of money, but there is good news already..."
KFC is one of the first donors to come on board the Carte Blanche "Making a Difference" campaign. Nikki Rule is the KFC's Chief Marketing Officer.
Nikki Rule (Chief Marketing Officer, KFC): "The KFC Trust has decided to sponsor R1.5-million towards building the high care ward at Bloemfontein hospital.
Derek: "That's really fantastic - but why that ward?"
Nikki: "We just felt it was a good fit for KFC. And thinking that this high care ward was going to relieve these beds out of the ICU, just was fantastic."
This is a digital Bi-Plane Angio Cath Lab x-ray unit. Complicated, but simply essential for carrying out delicate heart procedures on young and tiny patients - sometimes as young as a day old and weighting as little as 700g. This machine is about 10 years old, and will have to be replaced soon. That's the cost of modern health care.
Dr Andre Bruwer (Paediatric cardiologist): "The budget figure at that stage, two years ago, was R10-million."
Derek: "Probably gone up since then?"
Dr Bruwer: "Its expensive equipment. But nowadays, a million - it's not that bad."
Dr Andre Bruwer is a Paediatric Cardiologist at Universitas Hospital - he administers all the non-invasive procedures like cathatarisations.
Dr Bruwer: "This equipment is already far past its prime. On the modern equipment you can see far better - the resolution is way better. It makes it a lot easier working. We've already two years back asked the powers that be if they could replace it - but they just looked at us in horror when they heard what the price is."
Open-heart surgeries are also performed at Bloemfontein Academic by the most respected surgeons. The entire cardiology unit - invasive and non-invasive procedures - treats 300 patients a year.
Eighteen-month-old Caspertjie Grobler underwent open-heart surgery while we were visiting the hospital. We met with his parents.
Derek: "With Caspertjie having open-heart surgery - a six hour operation - it must be an anxious wait for you?"
Anzel Grobler (Caspertjie's mother): "Very. A person does not know if he's going to make it and it's also..."
Casper Grobler (Caspertjie's father): "It's difficult. But as Anzel and I discussed, if it's the Lord's will then He'll allow the operation to be successful but if He feels it's better otherwise then we must understand and submit to His will."
You can't put a price on life, but you can add value to it. Nothing we do for children is ever wasted. They may seem not to notice and may perhaps forget to offer thanks, but what we can never feel is that we do too much for them.
In memory of Reese Sydney Wiggett
Date: 28 March 2008 - 01 August 2008
[In studio] Derek Watts: "And just to update you, little Caspertjie the open-heart surgery patient, is home and is recovering very well according to Dr Bruwer. He did battle with a lung infection shortly after the operation.'
Producer : Ashleigh Hamilton
Presenter : Derek Watts
CB20: Tools for life
News07 September 2008
With only 14 ICU beds for premature babies at Bloemfontein Academic Hospital, those who don’t come into the world fighting fit face a battle to survive. In this update we look at neo-natal needs in the Free State where Carte Blanche is raising millions for the “Beds of Hope” campaign.