Hospital Experience in Soweto

Today was another remarkable and memorable day in South Africa . I went on an errand of “good works” with 4 other friends, one senior missionary, one African director of an orphanage, one South African who volunteers many hours to charity and one 23 year old African who works two weeks a month at Oprah’s school. We went the largest hospital in the world which is located in Soweto . The name of it is Baragwanath Hospital and it occupies 173 acres with 3200 beds. Our purpose was to deliver 50 hats made by a young woman in the Alamo II Ward in California and fifty homemade baby blankets made by her mother. We also had 80 newborn kits that we picked up at the church warehouse to deliver to these new mothers.
As long as I live I will never forget the visuals I saw that day with babies everywhere and mothers half dressed everywhere and truly almost total silence. We only heard at the most 3 babies cry.
We drove about 20 minutes from where I live to this HUGE hospital. We were directed to pull into the emergency vehicle lane where we would unload our treasures onto several small trolleys. We had two cars and an ambulance could not have gone where it needed to go if one had appeared but because we came bearing gifts that seemed to have priority. There were 5 of us who would give these things out and there were five workers from the hospital who would guard what we had so that things would not disappear as we were busy handing clothing, hats and blankets out. The five workers were all in uniforms and the hospital itself was very clean. As we walked through the door, the first thing we saw was between 40 and 50 women sitting in chairs that were lined up like you would see in a church meeting. All of these women were in labor and were waiting to see the doctor to see if they could be admitted. As we started to pass our gifts to them, they broke into huge smiles inspite of their pain and were thrilled and they waved and smiled and said thank you over and over again. An amazing sight.!!!
As we walked down the halls, the director of the maternity wards told us that 70 babies had been delivered in the past 18 hours. They have 151 beds and all were full. The women are allowed to stay 6 hours after birth if there weren’t any complications. If they had a cesarean section, then they could stay longer, and if there were any problems with their health or the baby’s health then they could stay overnight. Many AIDS babies are delivered there, many were premature and they have many deaths of these babies everyday. We met 3 women who had lost their babies, but were in the regular maternity wards with all the mothers and their babies. Two of them simply had tears running down their faces, but they didn’t make a sound. My heart ached to see them looking at the other mothers with their babies and their arms were empty.
We went into about ½ of the maternity wards. I will never forget what I saw. There are not enough hospital gowns for the mothers, so at least half and probably more of the women were wrapped in bed sheets. Some of the sheets were around their shoulders, but many were like a strapless dress, twisted and tucked. Many had blood on their sheets or their gowns. Many had their breast exposed….they were just in all stages of undress. We even saw one woman totally naked sitting on a small stool. Some were walking very slowly because they had just given birth. Some still didn’t know whether they had a boy or a girl because they hadn’t seen their baby yet. We saw 2 sets of triplets and 2 sets of twins. We found out that everyday they find babies outside of the hospital who have been abandoned. They are on the steps, in the bushes or by the dumpster.
The babies were everywhere sort of lined up in their portable plastic bins. In each bin was a paper 8 ½ X 11 with the name of the mother and all of her information. There were so many bins of babies that we wondered if they mixed up babies everyday. There were no name tags on the babies or the mothers. There was a room for premature babies; there was a room for babies with jaundice; there were isolation rooms with babies in these bins; there was a room for sick babies which I assumed were babies that were HIV positive. I’ve never seen so many black babies in my life and they were all beautiful. They just didn’t cry which was amazing to me. The babies were in some blankets that belonged to the hospital, and some were in old twin size blankets from home, I guess. We were told that some babies go home in newspaper or plastic because they have nothing.
We gave our meager gifts, and we didn’t make a dent. Tomorrow 70 more babies will be born. It was thrilling to see the joy as we gave out what we did. It was hard to know that many of those babies will die from AIDS or malnutrition or dehydration. It was understandable to see some mothers try to come back for more, saying they didn’t get anything. It was heart warming to know that about 80 babies would have 2 things to take home, but it was heartbreaking knowing that the hole is so large and the needs so great that we can’t make a dent. I think that Mother Teresa’s philosophy is the best to think about which is that if we can help one person at a time, we can make a difference. The Savior has taught us also to reach out to the one. We reached out to many today, because a sweet young woman from California cared enough to do something, and the wonderful RS sisters put those newborn kits together someplace in an Enrichment meeting. I don’t think any of the givers really had any idea what this gift would mean to these mothers and babies. We were the heroes as we gave out these gifts, but it is the ones at home who really should be here to deliver these lovely things and to see the joy and the appreciation. I am blessed to have been there to be part of this. I want to do more. I want to solve the problems, but I know that won’t be possible. …..so we do what we can and pray that our minutes of service are enough to bring joy to a few souls.