Mother battles with lung disease

 If you breathe in and out without any help, you have every reason to be grateful to your maker because 32-year-old Margaret Phiri does not enjoy that luxury.

She is alive today because she is literally tied to an oxygen concentrator to breathe.

Any cut of supply of oxygen through power failure, God forbid, would signal her end of life, but thank God she has hanged in there regardless.

Phiri has been a permanent fixture on life support at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) for the past two years and a month. In fact, she spent her two Christmases on a hospital bed.

If two weeks of admission to a public hospital might seem eternity to the majority of patients and guardians, two years and a month would be more than a torturous life.

Phiri has a chronic lung problem; hence, cannot stay off the concentrator because she depends on oxygen therapy.

She started feeling strange on December 20, 2021 when she failed to breathe properly.

She thought it was Covid-19 and was rushed to QECH Covid-19 section.

But Covid-19 tests came out negative and more tests revealed that her lungs were damaged and she needed to be put on life support; hence, the mother of four—two boys and two girls—was admitted.

Her two-year-old son Miracle has not really known the love of a mother nor does he understand what pain his mother is going through.

He has unanswered questions, too: Why is his mother always connected to breathing tubes when the rest of mothers are playing with their children? Why is she always in the hospital and doesn’t want to go home? He may not understand.

He pulls the mother: “Ama… tiyeni kunyumba inu!” [Mum, let’s go home, please].”

When Nation on Sunday visited Phiri last week, we met Miracle who had come to see her together with a family member, a sister to her mother.

Though she promised her son she will come out of the hospital: “Pitani, ndibwera mawa wamva? [Go home. I will come tomorrow?” She knows that is  not going to happen.

Miracle was just four months old when his mother developed the problem and has not breastfed him.

According to a doctor we talked to, Phiri needs a lung transplant to breathe without support, a procedure which cannot be done in the country.

Can’t she be nursed at home?

Phiri could be nursed at home if there was constant supply of power for a concentrator and oxygen cylinder.

In November last year, a well-wisher Rodwell Lumbe mobilised funds and two concentrators and solar panels that were planted at her house in Nancholi, Blantyre.

And, on November 20 last year Phirir eturned her home.

“It was a great feeling, I could not believe it seeing my children and family friends,” she said.

Little did she know that she would be there for a short time.

She arrived home at around 10am and by 3pm, the concentrator had stopped functioning. Panicking, they removed the machine and switched on another one but realised that it was not working.

“I called the doctor who rushed to take me back to hospital and by 4pm, I was back at the hospital,” she said.

Two weeks later, the machine was fixed and on December 7 they left the hospital again. A week went by without challenges but there was a fault on Escom’s power supply in the second week. They made follow ups but hours passed.

An alternative was to use solar power, but by 8pm it tripped, doctors were informed and she was taken to the hospital at 9pm.

A third attempt was towards end of December. On the same day ,the first machine went down. She moved to the other machine which stopped working the following day. Panicking again, she called the doctor; unfortunately the doctor’s number was busy.

“I tried to talk to the driver for I had saved his number, but he had knocked off. Later, the doctor called, I had stayed 20 minutes. I was dying on that day, a driver was found and came home—a difficult place to reach,” said Phiri.

“I remember I prayed my last prayer I saw death coming. By God’s grace I reached the hospital alive,” she added.

Since then, no attempt of going home has been made. “It is difficult now because the machines are down and the solar is not working anymore,” she added.

Life at home

Phiri was advised to use a raised back bed as is the case at the hospital.

Since she could not afford a tailor-made bed, she opted to improvise with bricks and a couple of sofa cushions.

The raised back bed is a requirement for patients that use oxygen concentrators.

“A well-wisher promised to buy the bed, but failed to fulfil the promise; hence, I just improved with big bricks,” she said.

Also at home, her landlord told her to contribute an extra K39 000 since the concentrator uses a lot of power, something she cannot afford apart from begging well-wishers.

Her mother is heartbroken

From 2021 to date, her mother Delia Majawa has been guarding her in the hospital. The 60-year-old cannot afford to be home when her daughter is in hospital.

Last year, Majawa sold her only piece of land at K300 000 to buy an oxygen concentrator only to realise that the machine costs over a million kwacha.

“I really wanted to help my daughter; hence, I sold the land,” said the widow.

Months later she started asking people to top up the money, but she ended spending it on groceries to feed Phiri’s children.

Though she is in hospital, Majawa also supports Phiri’s children because her husband left her.

“When I buy a two-kilogramme flour pack, I share with them. When there is no money, they sleep on empty stomach. We reach a situation where we wish to share food we receive from the hospital,” she said.

Majawa does not understand why it is taking long for her daughter to find help.

“Koma Mulungu-yu abale akadangotimasula. Kodi tidzakhala munomo mpaka liti?” she wondered. n