Here his doctor Chen Ru has kindly shared her story…
On 31 March 2022, baby Ho was born into a local minority Yi people family in a rural town named Sanya located in Jiulong county of Sichuan Liangshan. Having been born 22 days, on 18 April 2022, Baby Ho was admitted to Mianning County People’s Hospital having been reluctant to feed, had difficulty breathing, and had a fever. Without knowing precisely what the problem was, Baby Ho received immediate emergency treatment to stabilize him before being admitted to a specialist neonatal care unit, where CMF helped build and train doctors and nurses through Every Baby Rescued Program. Informed by a series of tests whilst in the neonatal care unit, we discovered that Baby Ho had severe Pneumonia – the single largest infectious cause of death in children worldwide.
For Baby Ho’s parents it’s an anxious and worrying time as they fear for the life of their precious child. According to WHO, Pneumonia killed 740,180 children under the age of 5 in 2019, accounting for 14% of all deaths of children. Without intervention, infants may face a lifetime of disability or lead to death, but it can be prevented with simple interventions.
In the past, we could not do anything more than putting in a non-invasive ventilator, but that did not go far enough to save a baby with severe Pneumonia. Thanks to CMF, we received 6 months of neonatal intensive care training at Sichuan Provincial Maternal & Child Health Hospital. We can now perform endotracheal intubation and respiratory therapy with an invasive ventilator. This is the first case in our hospital where we successfully used an invasive ventilator to rescue a baby with Pneumonia.
Fortunately for us, Baby Ho has since fully recovered and shows no signs of lasting damage. Simply put, had we not been fortunate enough to have CMF, and if not for the immediate and quality care he received, Baby Ho might not have been so lucky.
Dr. Chen Ru, Mianning County People’s Hospital, Sichuan