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| Baby Baraka being cuddled by a nurse [Photo:Standard] |
By Lonah Kibet
Five-month-old Baraka lives in solitude at the Kenyatta National Hospital. He rarely gets visitors and nurses, busy at work, only get to him when it is absolutely necessary.
Deprived of parental love because he was born with hydracephalus, a condition that is more complicated than hydrocephalus (a condition where there is water inside the brain), baby Baraka has known no other home except the hospital bed.
The baby was given the name Baraka by a pastor who visited him at the hospital. Baraka was born last March by a woman known as Martha Musimi on her way to hospital.
On the roadside
Good Samaritans found Musimi and the new baby on the roadside and rushed them to a nursing home in Kibera. When the health workers saw the condition of the baby, they immediately referred them to KNH.
On admission to the hospital’s New Born Unit, Musimi learnt of her baby’s health condition and fled.
Attempts by a social worker to locate her whereabouts bore no fruits as the cell phone number she had put down in the hospital records was engaged throughout.
The hospital realised the baby, like many others born with disability at the hospital, had been abandoned.
Minimal survival chance
Three weeks ago, Baraka was moved to the paediatric section for further treatment and monitoring. His health has been deteriorating and his chances of survival are minimal without proper care.
The child has been in the care of the busy nurses, a patient at the hospital and recently, a pastor; Alan Odhiambo, or Jomba as patients call him.
Pastor Jomba was visiting sick children at the hospital when he noticed another patient carrying baby Baraka. He got curious about his condition and inquired about it.
The pastor’s heart went out to the baby after learning that he was abandoned and had no one to take care of him. Apart from lacking material things such as diapers and clothes, the baby missed love and being held close by a loving parent.
