Stories from the field
Saving Stacey: the miracle baby at the Red Cross hospital in Haiti
July 2, 2010
By Claire Doole in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Weighing less than three pounds, baby Stacey is a statistical wonder. Two months after her birth she is only a third of the weight she should have been when she was born. Stacey came into the world prematurely at a Red Cross field hospital in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. “When I saw her in the delivery room, I didn’t think she would survive,” says Dr Zubair Masood, a pediatrician at the hospital run by the German and Finnish Red Cross societies. “She was so small she could fit into the palm of my hand.” |
 Photo by José Manuel Jiménez |
When Stacey was delivered, she weighed just over 1.5 pounds and is one of the smallest babies the hospital has safely delivered since its tents went up two weeks after the quake.
Dr Masood and his team have been giving Stacey round-the-clock care since she was born in the tented field hospital in Carrefour, the site of a former football stadium and one of the worst quake-affected areas in the capital.
For a month, she was in the intensive care unit, looked after by a team of four nurses and a doctor.
“We don’t have a special intensive care unit for babies with incubators, ventilators, radiant warmers and all the facilities that help a premature baby breathe, keep warm or away from germs,” explains Dr Masood. “But what we do have are doctors and nurses who are totally committed to saving lives.”
After making progress, Stacey was moved to the paediatric tent, where her mother, Many Fillia, has started to breastfeed her.
“When Stacey arrived it was touch and go. She was so weak, but now she is sleeping less, eating more and is much happier,” says nurse Marie Suzette Tegenus.
Since the hospital opened on January 28, 791 babies have been born, an average of 40 a week. But the numbers are rising; during the first week of June, 69 babies were delivered.
“Stacey has had a tough start in life,” says Dr Masood, “but she has a fighting spirit and there is no reason that she should not grow up a healthy child.”
