By TODD PITMAN
Nov. 16, 2013 11:57 PM EST
TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) —
Althea Mustacisa was born three days ago in the aftermath of the killer
typhoon that razed the eastern Philippines. And for every one of those three
days, she has struggled to live.
But she has clung to life because
her parents have been pushing oxygen into her tiny body with a hand-held pump
non-stop ever since she came into this world.
And "if they stop, the baby
will die," said Amie Sia, a nurse at a hospital in typhoon-wracked
Tacloban city that is running without electricity and few staff or medical
supplies.
"She can't breathe without
them. She can't breathe on her own," Sia said. "The only sign of
life this little girl has left is a heartbeat."
More than a week after ferocious
Typhoon Haiyan annihilated a vast swath of the Philippines, killing more than
3,600 people, the storm's aftermath is still claiming victims — and doctors
here fear Althea may be the next.
When the fierce storm smashed
into this tropical country on Nov. 8, it transformed Tacloban into an
unrecognizable wasteland of rubble and death.
The bottom floor of the two-story
government-run Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center was flooded, and the
intensive care unit for newborns was left a muddy ruin. Life-saving machinery,
like the facility's only incubator, was soiled with water and mud.
As the storm hit, doctors and
staff took 20 babies who were already in the intensive care unit to a small
chapel upstairs for their safety, placing them three or four in one plastic
crib cart built for one newborn.
With the chapel converted into an
ad-hoc neonatal clinic, all the babies survived initially. But six died later,
"because we lack vital medical equipment that was destroyed," said
the attending physician, Dr. Leslie Rosario.
Within days, however, 10 more
babies born during or in the aftermath of the storm were taken in, including
Althea. She was born at the hospital on Nov. 13, weighing 2.65 kilograms (5.84
pounds), suffering from an inability to breathe.
Doctors performed CPR on her and
since then they have been giving her oxygen from the hand-held pump connected
to a blue rubber bubble that fits into her tiny mouth and draws sustenance
from a green tank through a transparent pipe.
Doctors said the storm had not
been a factor in the baby's problems, noting that insufficient prenatal care
most likely complicated the pregnancy for the 18-year-old mother. The baby was
not born premature.
Still, there was a good chance of
saving Althea had the hospital been equipped with electricity that would have
run a ventilator, incubator and other life-saving equipment.
Until Saturday, the makeshift
ward in the chapel had no light except candles. On Saturday, one small
fluorescent bulb attached to a diesel generator was hung in the middle of the
room where a few packs of diapers sit on the altar below a picture of Jesus.
On the floor are a few more boxes
of the only medical supplies left — water for IV fluids, syringes, a handful
of antibiotics.
The hospital also lacks manpower.
In the neonatal clinic alone, only three out of 16 staff are still working,
Rosario said. The rest never reported back after the storm. The Philippines
Department of Health sent two nurses from Manila to help.
The hospital chapel's windows are
all shattered and missing. It is now filled with 24 babies — five of them in
critical condition, the rest with fevers or other ailments. Many were born
premature.
Their parents are there too,
resting on 28 rows of wooden pews. Three mothers have IV drips in their arms.
Nanette Salutan, 40, is one of
them. She said her labor contraction began just as the winds from Haiyan began
howling. The contractions continued after the storm eased, and she walked to
the hospital with her husband. It was an eight-hour trek through corpse-filled
rubble and waist-high water.
"All I could think was, I
wanted my baby to live," Salutan said.
Her baby boy, Bernard, was born
the same night — at 2:13 a.m. He weighed just 2.6 kg (5.73 lb) and measured 45
centimeters (17.71 inches) tall.
But he did not cry, and they knew
immediately something was wrong.
The baby was not breathing.
Doctors performed cardiopulmonary
resuscitation, and put clear green tubes of oxygen in his nose. He is still so
weak that he has to be fed by a syringe that is connected to a tube taped to
his mouth.
Rosario said Bernard had a decent
chance of survival. But Althea's prognosis is not good.
In a heart-stopping moment, her
body turned blue as her breathing became more labored. Doctors rushed in and
connected an IV needle into the remnant of her umbilical cord -- the one in
her wrist had been there too long to be effective, they said. Slowly life
flowed back into her tiny body.
"If we had a ventilator,
it's possible she could live," Sia said. "But right now she's very
weak, and I don't think she's going to make it."
"They've been traumatized by
the typhoon, and now they're traumatized because they're trying to keep their
baby alive," Rosario said of Althea's parents. "They're physically
and emotionally exhausted."
As she spoke, Althea's mother,
Genia Mae Mustacisa, leaned over her baby girl, stroked her forehead and
kissed it.
The newborn lay on a wooden
table, eyes closed, wrapped in a blue- and white-striped blanket. Her feet
poked out, revealing a pair of mismatched socks — one with pink and red
hearts, one of the "Peanuts" comic character Snoopy sweeping with a
broom.
Methodically, her mother squeezed
a green rubber bag attached to the tall tank of oxygen slowly over and over,
every few seconds, just as her husband had done for half an hour before.
"It's OK," she
whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I love you so much. No
matter what happens, I love you so much."
___
POSTSCRIPT: DR. LESLIE ROSARIO AT
THE VISAYAS REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER TOLD THE ASSOCIATED PRESS THAT ALTHEA DIED
OVERNIGHT. HER PARENTS BUNDLED HER UP AND LEFT THE HOSPITAL.
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