A Needle, a Bone, and a Miracle: Baby Joe's Journey from Desperation to Delight

The malnutrition program continues to treat some of the most unwell children such as Baby Joe, who had been sick for a long time, steadily deteriorating at home. He had started to get more swollen up as his mother had run out of food to give him and was getting more breathless every day. To make things worse, he started to suffer from diarrhoea with very little control of his bowels. As with many thousands of children, he had been taken to a collection of pharmacies and clinics, all of which either had no trained staff or no medication.

His mother brought him to the hospital in desperation, thankful that he was seen very quickly in the emergency room. The staff rapidly took in the swelling of both of his legs, the comatose state, the inability to drink and the fast breathing. Within minutes of arriving the senior nurse had started oxygen and recognising that feeding was not going to happen easily had inserted a nasogastric tube to start some F75.

Despite all these prompt responses there was still one problem. Baby Joe had no visible veins, with fluid blanketing all his limbs, so finding a way to give antibiotics was going to be a battle. His blood sugar reading came back at 2.1. Without some urgent intervention, Baby Joe was almost certainly going to die. The team kept trying and thanks to the ETAT plus training the previous month there were several members of the team who were able to insert an intra-osseous needle then rapidly start some dextrose and antibiotics.

Almost immediately the lights came on inside Baby Joe! The eery silence over his face melted away and he began crying, babbling some toddler words about milk and mummy and going home. His mother’s sobs turned to smiles as he began holding her again, smiling as she saw the dramatic change. By the next day he was drinking plenty and even giggling a little as more milk came every couple of hours. His legs came alive, robotic at first but soon remembering their old energy and beginning to potter around the ward, then amazingly, home and well!

Incredibly, a simple yet counter-intuitive intervention such as a needle into a bone changed the course of a child’s life. Having the combination of the right equipment, trained personnel and opportunities for care is key in saving the lives of the vulnerable children who come through.

Written by Dr. Mikey Bryant, ELWA Hospital