Hospital killed my baby
Mom blames facility for infant’s death Doctors say incorrectly inserted drip can be fatal
A mother whose baby died after his hand turned purple following a drip and 10-week vaccination, blames the hospital for his death.
Dineo Mpofu, 30, said the problem began when her son Leungo was put on a drip a day after he was born at Taung Hospital, North West, which led to his hand turning purple.
Mpofu from Losasane village near Taung, said she delivered her baby boy at midnight on April 5 and the nurse who assisted her told her to go and sleep in the maternity ward.
The following day nurses called to tell her the baby was crying. She said she noticed her baby’s right hand had turned purple and blood was coming out of his nails.
After asking what had happened to the baby’s hand, she was told the drip was not put on correctly.
“She also told me not to worry because my baby will be fine,” said Mpofu.
A few hours later the nurses informed her she and the baby were being transferred to the Klerksdorp Hospital to treat her baby’s hand.
“It was bad, by that time it had swollen and was developing black dots,” she said.
The baby was treated, and Mpofu was discharged and returned home. She said the colour slowly faded away and her baby looked normal. “I thought they had fixed the problem because I could see that his hand was getting better,” she said.
On June 14, when her baby was 10 weeks old, he died in his sleep. Mpofu said his hand had swollen and turned purple again.
“This is painful. On that day we had just come back from his 10-week-old vaccination. When I arrived home, he was asleep. I placed him on my bed. Later, when I went to check on him, he was dead. I was shocked I did not know what to do, I thought his hand was healed.”
Mpofu said she went back to the hospital and laid a complaint.
The death certificate seen by Sowetan said the cause of death was under investigation.
The child, Mpofu’s first, was buried on Thursday.
North West health department’s spokesman Tebogo Lekgethwane said: “The bluish pigmentation/ colour on the baby’s arm was explained to her (mom), that it was a normal occurrence. Normally a drip may fail to penetrate where it’s been placed and in that case a different spot in the arm was located.
“The pigmentation normally goes away and it did in this case. She accepted this explanation. She left both hospitals with the baby in good health all the time.
“She missed some appointments.”
Lekgethwane said a postmortem was requested to determine the cause of death.
I placed him on my bed ... When I went to check on him, he was dead Dineo Mpofu MOTHER