After months of work and patiently waiting, we finally received approval to open our Abandoned Infant Care Centre. After hearing from Ian how horrible the nursery is, and realizing that was one part of the medical I had yet to see, I requested to help our social workers get babies one day.
The second you walk into the nursery/NICU, you can’t help but notice how poor their facilities really are. Two staff nurses work to care for approximately 30 babies at one time. Small wired baskets line the walls of the room holding two babies each. Their NICU incubators hold three to five infants each. None of them are clothed, no care is provided when they cry, there are no diapers, and feces are everywhere. Above the bed is a hand written note dating when the last cleaning was and when the next will occur. 11 days pass between cleanings. Next to the incubators are wire baskets with our babies in them. Babies come to this place after being abandoned by their mothers. Some are there for days, others months, before they either die or an outside institution takes them in. The hospital lacks much needed money to properly care for these little ones so instead of formula, babies are fed water and occasionally glucose powder. They’ve hardly even been bathed or held. I witnessed a nurse literally throw a blanket at a baby in attempt to make him stop crying. It’s easy to believe the stories we’d heard of babies dying from starvation after being there. It’s even worse to know that babies were dying while we were waiting for our papers to be approved.
Me and one of our volunteers, Emma, with our babies
Kenyans are very particular about having babies covered from head to toe. This particular baby, whom I later named Noah, was swaddled in a blanket when the wind blew it off his face. Instead of crying, his eyes got big and he looked around with such amazement. This was the first time in his life of three months that he’d ever been outside or seen anything other than the ceiling of the nursery. Even though several people scolded me for not having the baby properly covered, there was no way I was going to cover his face again.
The staff have gone through an excruciatingly long, frustrating, and difficult struggle to get to where we are today. I am happy to report that we now have seven precious babies at the Centre that are thriving. They have improved so much already having been here such a short time. You can find pictures of our babies under Karibu Centre’s Facebook page.
This just moves me to tears. As you’ve mentioned before, it’s hard to believe in this day and time that this type of thing can even happen. Little babies starving, suffering, and dying like this. What a wonderful opportunity and blessing to be part of nourishing these babies to where they are now growing and thriving. Great job Karibu Centre!!!