Hope and Heart-Break Sometimes Go Hand-in-Hand

Sister Thandile Mbaxa is a professional nurse who has worked with little heart patients at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital for 5 years.  She is dedicated to her role and simply loves working with children – it has always been her dream.

Sr Mbaxa has nursed hundreds of children, a number of which have been referred from the Eastern Cape in South Africa.  Most of them come from extensively poor areas where the community is vastly uneducated.  In these areas, and in many similar areas throughout Southern Africa, people including clinicians are not cognisant of the signs to look out for when a baby or child has a heart condition.

One of the heart conditions that Sr Mbaxa highlights as being very challenging to diagnose is Dilated Cardio Myopathy (DCM).  This is a condition in which the heart’s ability to pump blood is decreased due to the heart’s main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, is enlarged and weakened.  The heart is therefore not able to squeeze efficiently, decreasing the quantity of blood that is pumped throughout the child’s body.  Symptoms can include laboured breathing, poor appetite which results in slow weight gain.

Even though 1 in 100 babies are born with a heart defect, parents and guardians are generally not aware that this is the most common birth defect globally.  Once diagnosed in time, corrective operations can be performed very successfully so that their children can live healthy, normal lives post heart surgeries.

Caring for little patients can be heart-wrenching as a nurse, especially when you are aware that a child will most likely not survive if they do not receive the correct diagnosis and treatment in time or if they require a heart transplant and there are no apparent donors.

“It’s devasting knowing that a little patient may not survive because they did not receive the correct diagnosis in time or they need transplant.”