Yet another wait: Phelo’s story

It’s midmorning at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital (RCWMCH), and baby Phelo (a nickname) is ready to take a nap. But when his mother, Nomaphelo, tries to lay him in his cot, he clings to her with his fingers and toes gripping tightly to her clothing. He cries until she relents and holds him close. He stops crying immediately. With a dramatic sigh, tears still running down his face, he nestles down happily into her arms. Nomaphelo laughs softly and shakes her head as she gives him a gentle squeeze.

Nomaphelo beams when she talks about her children. “I’ve got two girls and two boys. I’ve got everything!” She chuckles before adding, “I’m done now. I have enough.” Baby Phelo is the youngest. He’s just over a year old. “He’s busy. He wants to walk everywhere holding on to my legs,” Nomaphelo laughs. With his chubby cheeks and the white dressings on his head, he looks like a little Smurf.

As Nomaphelo looks down at the dressings on his back, her smile disappears. “It was ten o’clock at night, and I was getting ready to have a bath,” she begins. “I had filled it with hot water and went to get a bucket of cold water. He was supposed to be asleep on my bed.” As soon as his mother left, Phelo scrambled into the bath.

Nomaphelo was returning to the bedroom when she heard the splash followed by a scream that froze her heart. “I didn’t know he would jump,” she says quietly. She pauses, swallowing hard as she disappears into her thoughts. She comes back to the present with a jolt and shakes her head quickly, as if trying to banish the memory. “I didn’t know what to do.”

It was late at night, and they live in rural Klapmuts, far from the nearest medical facility. After a long pause, she continues. “I grabbed him and ran to my neighbour. She helped me phone the ambulance. When they came, they took us to the hospital in Stellenbosch. That was on Wednesday night.”

When they arrived at the hospital, mother and son waited through the night to be seen. When Phelo’s wounds were assessed early the next morning, he was immediately transferred to the RCWMCH. He had burn wounds across much of his torso and his head.

Nomaphelo is delighted to see how much her baby has recovered in the week that he’s been in the RCWMCH. “He’s already started playing again. He’s happy!” As if to prove her wrong, Phelo lets out a tired wail and buries his face in her shoulder, and she stops to comfort him.

Her happiness and relief are tempered, though, by her concern for the three young children that she has left behind. “My landlord is taking care of them. There’s no one else.” She is hopeful that they will be reunited soon.

Many children, like Phelo, live in rural areas of the Western Cape. If they suffer a burn injury, they often wait a day or two for transport, sometimes without adequate pain management or infection control, before they arrive at the RCWMCH for treatment. The Burns Service Strengthening Project ensures that children from across the Western Cape receive the care that they need, closer to home.