YANDISA'S STORY

“Mothers come from all over the place and we are able to give them their child to go home with. And that is really very good.”

Eight months ago, Landiwe gave birth to triplets in Mbabane Government Hospital in Eswatini. They were born at just 25 weeks and Yandisa was the only one to survive, weighing just 730 grams.

“He was quiet, very small. Sometimes I would cry. I wouldn’t want to go and check up on my baby because I thought he was also going to pass away. The nurses told me I should just be patient,” Landiwe recalls.

Every year it is estimated that over 13 million babies worldwide are born prematurely. In Eswatini, prematurity is a leading cause (35%) of all under-five deaths . Sister Jane Shongwe, who heads the neonatal ward, knew that with the right resources her team could save so many precious lives.

“The equipment that we needed most were the ventilators that would support the respiratory system for the newborn babies, we were losing a lot of them,” she says. In 2019, funds raised for Soccer Aid for UNICEF were matched by the UK Government, enabling UNICEF to provide these vital machines for the newly opened Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the Mbabane Government Hospital.

With this lifesaving equipment, the neonatal team can support parents like Landiwe in their hope and fight for their babies’ survival.

Today, bonny in his blue teddy bear onesie, Yandisa is proof of that. Sister Jane, who nursed him for the first five months of his life, scoops him up for a cuddle.

The Head of Paediatric and Neonatal services at the hospital, Dr. Eunice Nyesigire Ruhinda, sums up the transformative impact of the new NICU. “Mothers come from all over the place and we are able to send them home with their child. And that is really very good.”