Wineland Woes

Sitting in his hospital cot, little four-year old *Chulumanco’s big eyes and calm demeanour hide the trauma of the painful ordeal he has had to endure  over the past two months.

Even though winter has been slow to start in the Western Cape this year, it is a cold morning in Ceres when *Noluthando boils water on a gas stove to make porridge for herself and her son. When Chulumanco hears the bubbling sound of the boiling water, he reaches his hands up towards the gas stove while his mother fusses with the maize, and in an instant the boy is covered in white, hot burns. Noluthando reacts immediately, snatching the boy up into her arms.

The  distraught mom knows that water is best to apply to burn wounds but because there is no running water in their home, she bundles up her precious  child and rushes him to Ceres District Hospital where his wounds are dressed, but she is told that she needs to go the Worcester Community  Day Centre.

While Worcester is only a 40-minute drive away from Ceres,  there aren’t any ambulances on standby in town. These vehicles have to  come from Worcester, and to make matters worse, there’s an ambulance transfer waiting list, essentially turning  a 40-minute trip into a  six-hour-long ordeal. When they arrive the nursing staff lovingly tend to Chulumanco’s wounds, but it upsets Noluthando that they came all this way only to be referred to Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital (RCWMCH) in Cape Town.

It’s another ambulance ride for the weary Noluthando and her son, but they have to join the ambulance queue again, so they end up having to wait another twelve agonizing hours to be admitted to the  Burns Ward. Neither of them gets any sleep that night. Noluthando’s heart breaks for Chulumanco, but she can do little to comfort her sobbing son, whose voice is almost gone from crying.

By the time mother and son finally arrive at RCWMCH, Chulumanco’s burns have become much more severe and painful. Things move quickly  when he is admitted, and Noluthando  doesn’t quite understand what is happening . She is wracked with guilt that Chulumanco had to suffer for so long and agonises over what else should she have done.

Fast forward to two months later, and little Chulumanco, despite being wrapped up in dressing, is the picture of calm. He and his mother have had to make the RCWMCH their impromptu second home due to the severity of his injuries. Noluthando is worried about how many days she has missed out on work; her employer keeps texting to ask when she’ll be back, and he doesn’t sound happy. That’s part of the reason Chulumanco has been kept in the hospital for so long: although her son is technically well enough to go home, Noluthando can’t afford the day trips she would have had to take to bring her son in for wound care and dressing changes. Sr Goosen, nursing manager of the burns ward at RCWMCH, reflects on Chulumanco’s experience. “We see so many patients like him: travelling long distances, sent from facility to facility before coming here. With the right training and equipment, staff will know the right first aid, how to directly refer severe cases, and be able to manage the  follow-up care.”

Chulumanco is definitely on the road to recovery, but it is one that could have been a lot shorter and less fraught with worry if he had timely treatment closer to home.

Please consider donating to our Burns Project to expand treatment to Western Cape patients outside of Cape Town. 100% of your donation goes towards paediatric infrastructural projects and programmes. Read more about the Burns Project here.

*Not their real names