I nearly died on the day I was born. My mother laboured for 24 hours in a bush hospital in northern Uganda that had no running water and no electricity. Fortunately, the midwife found a doctor, who had witnessed a Caesarian section, who managed to operate, saving my life and my mother’s. Today, had I been born in one of the many places across the world without adequate maternal and reproductive health care, I may not have survived my own day of birth.
When nine-month-old Borsha was admitted to the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh last January, she was on the verge of death.
Currently classified as one of the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Nepal has one of the highest malnutrition rates globally, with over 41 percent of children suffering from chronic under-nourishment, particularly in rural areas.
Medical practitioners at the National Institute of Child Health (NICH), a leading government-run children’s hospital in Karachi, hope that this will be the last winter they have to treat a stream of children suffering from pneumonia.