They Hurry to Live

There is a baby in the couveuse. It seems incredibly tiny; its constantly moving arms and legs look more like thin sticks. Setting straight a cannula the doctor smiles, “This one is quite big, 1,400 grammes; and those new-borns whose weight is less than a kilogramme are really small”. To save these “little” people’s lives a special device – a perfusor – has to be purchased for the Dnepropetrovsk regional children’s hospital.

The premature babies unit No 6 of the city children’s clinical hospital No 6 is the only one in Dnepropetrovsk. Babies under 500 grammes are nursed here. Special devices help them breathe, eat and unload the organism; the infant incubator keeps the body temperature and protects the babies from infections.

Perfusors are vital for keeping the premature babies alive. These are infusion pumps that are designed to deliver measured amounts of a drug or nutrient liquids through injection over time. This helps to prevent the babies from side reactions development and complications. Sometimes a baby needs three such apparatuses at a time to infuse nutrients, medicine and heart preparations. And there are only ten perfusors in the unit now.

A perfusor costs a little more than 11,645 UAH. 1,645 UAH has already been collected, there is 10,000 left. One can buy two trendy smartphones or expensive iPads with this money. Or one can save a human’s life.

Premature babies have to fight for surviving in our world. But if we provide them with due care and give them a little attention, they will live!