Wandele

From the diary of Michel Groenenstijn, about his volunteer work in South Africa.

Wandele, the youngest child at the orphanage, is about nine months old. When his mother was pregnant with him, she had already been infected with AIDS for quite a while and didn't have much time left. Because of all she had endured and the mental affects of that, she did not take the medicines that would prevent mother to child infection of HIV. After giving birth to Wandele, she breastfed him as she couldn't afford baby formula, so there's a big chance Wandele is infected.

In addition to that he suffers from some kind of asthma, which makes it very difficult for him to breath easily. He's been taken into the hospice a couple of times, so he can be respirated several times a day. However, the hospice, where people generally come to die, is no place for small children; that's why we're busy trying to buy a respirator for the orphanage. If we can't get sponsorship for this, we're going to use some of your donations for this. We also want to try and get Wandele medication to suppress the HIV-virus. These are very costly, and can therefore not be payed for by the orphanage.

[...]

Last Friday blood was taken from Wandele for an HIV-AIDS test. Because they couldn't find the veins in his arms, they had to take blood from his upper leg, which didn't please him at all. Two nurses were needed to control him and it sounded like a chicken was being turned inside out. Really, we didn't know children could make so much noise! That same day we were called for the results and against all odds, Wandele is not infected!

Unfortunately, his ashma is not any better, he's suffering from a rash and his legs are not entirely straight. Now that the test was negative, we have decided to take him to a regular GP in Hillcrest, together with Mthobi, who still has a bladder infection. The doctor was really upset about Wandele's breathing, and after investigating him advised us to take the little man to the hospital as soon as possible - otherwise, he might just die during the night.

However, it was not easy getting him admitted into the hospital. Even though we had a letter from the doctor, and even though we were at the 'emergency room', and a lot of nurses allowed us to cut the line because he's such a pretty child, we had to wait for over three and a half hours. The doctor that decided which cases were urgent and which weren't, did not think it was necessary to investigate him at all and decided, without having even looked at Wandele, based on the letter from the doctor, that he could go home after being respirated for ten minutes.

Of course we didn't agree with that, and after being sent back and forth a number of times and after having waited a very long time, we were finally able to go and talk to the doctor ourselves. Even though we took Wandele in with us, we had to talk like crazy. Only after we told her that he had been tested only a week ago, her attitude changed. When we added the fact that we would pay for his treatment, she suddenly thought it would be a good idea to listen to his chest and concluded that he should indeed be admitted.

After another bunch of forms, signatures and money we were finally able to take him to the children's ward. Fortunately, he was immediately surrounded by a large number of sweet nurses that immediately fell in love with him and doctors that did all kinds of tests on him right away. We still don't know how long exactly he has to stay there, but there's a good chance we can take him home next week.

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