In a ward dedicated to pneumonia patients at the hospital, children two or three lie on beds, watched over by worried parents and a handful of medical staff. Some mothers held tiny oxygen masks over babies’ faces, while fathers packed the aisles outside.
Suddenly there was a stampede. One-month-old baby Mohammad had stopped breathing and his lips were turning blue. Her panicked uncle, holding the baby in a green blanket, directed her to a specialized emergency unit two floors below. He collapses to the ground as the child’s mother runs after, shedding tears.
In the high-dependency unit, Mohammed was connected to an oxygen tube through his nose. The doctor said that his condition was critical and it would take five days for him to stabilise.
His mother kept sitting at the head of the child. She said that her husband had lost his job and they could not afford the heating. Seeing his son stop breathing, he said, “It felt like my own heart had stopped.”