As another day goes by with no operational cathlab facilities in the province, a tiny 2kg baby with a huge hole in his heart is holding on for dear life in the intensive care unit at Dora Nginza Hospital.
In the first 11 weeks of his life, the tiny boy has had two heart attacks.
The only operational cathlab in the province broke down in October and as the equipment was already beyond its lifespan, it could not be repaired.
For months the department of health has denied that there were any “urgent cases” that needed medical intervention.
Faced with a threat of legal action, the department delivered the new equipment at the hospital this week – but construction work might delay the reopening of the life-saving facility by at least six weeks.
Born with a severe heart defect after the cathlab broke down, Michael van Wyk has never been able to access the medical help he needs.
Despite desperate efforts to save him – two lumbar punctures, 16 blood tests and eight drips – he needs life-saving intervention from a working cathlab.
At almost four months old he weighs only 2.6kg, and he is fighting for every breath and heartbeat as his body shuts down from the mere strain of keeping alive.
His mom, Talitha Kruger, 22, has now placed her last hope in the Red Cross Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town to help her child.
“I was so excited to have him,” she said.
At her 20-week scan, doctors told her the baby had defects to both the upper and lower parts of his heart.
Michael suffers from a condition called atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD) – a heart defect in which there are holes between the chambers of the right and left sides of the heart, and the valves that control the flow of blood between these chambers may not be formed correctly.
This is putting him at high risk of heart failure.
“First we were able to go home as doctors said they wanted him to gain weight, but he had to work so hard to drink and even to breathe that he didn’t gain any,” she said.
To help him grow he was given a feeding tube.
“He really needed surgery but they couldn’t take him because they couldn’t do an angiogram (a detailed image of the heart) because the cathlab was broken,” she said.
Then disaster struck. Michael developed severe sepsis and one of his lungs collapsed.
He has been in the intensive care unit at Dora Nginza Hospital for the past month.
“I am beyond angry,” Kruger said. “Nobody can help him because he must get better first.”
After at first insisting that there were no emergency cases, health department spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said on Thursday night the department would foot the bill for Michael to be treated at a private hospital as soon as he was stable enough to move.
On Wednesday, blood was found in Michael’s stool and now more tests must be undertaken as doctors fear he might have developed internal bleeding.
“If they did something to fix the cathlab, this wouldn’t have happened,” Kruger said.
“The sepsis is getting better but every time I seem him I am sad.
“I long to hold him,” she said.
“He is fighting day and night to stay with us.”
The family has now started fundraising campaigns to help get Michael to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital for surgery.