_5_25700
Project HOPE’s Banneh Daramy at follow-up visits for babies previously discharged from the Special Care Baby Unit.
Follow-up visits for babies previously discharged from the Special Care Baby Unit..Inside the Special Care Baby Unit at Ola During Children’s Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, doctors and nurses provide urgent care to newborn babies who are fighting infectious diseases, asphyxia, and other serious health conditions.The unit treats over 250 newborn babies every month, including babies who are referred from rural villages hours away.
Many of the babies in the SCBU were born premature, some as small as three pounds at birth, and almost all the babies on the day we visited were on oxygen. Most newborns stay in the unit for about a week, though some of the babies in the SCBU had been there for extended stays, including one who had been for two months.
Project HOPE has sent rotations of volunteers to the SCBU to provide surge support and help improve the working conditions inside the unit. We have also sent biomedical engineers who have worked with the hospital’s maintenance team to repair oxygen machines, CPAP machines, and more, and we are repairing the SCBU’s water tank so the unit can have running water. Project HOPE previously helped build a Kangaroo Care Unit next to the SCBU, but it was temporarily closed on the day we visited due to fire.
Be the first to comment