Saved with the right equipment.

Three year old Tamandani was eating roasted corn when she accidentally inhaled a piece of corn into her lung. At first her parents thought she was ok, but when she suddenly couldn’t breathe properly her Mum and Dad raced to get her to a hospital.

By the time Tamandani arrived at the hospital she was fighting to breathe, and just before she reached the operating room she stopped breathing completely. 

Tamandani is alive today because Kids Operating Room provided a piece of equipment called a bronchoscope to Dr Nandi and his team at the Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi. The bronchoscope enabled Dr Nandi to see into the lung and pinpoint then remove the maize kernel.

Tamandani is alive because Kids Operating Room provided a piece of equipment called a bronchoscope to Dr Nandi and his team at the Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Before we installed the new paediatric operating room at Kamuzu Central Hospital, families with a desperately ill child would be forced to travel 200 miles to the larger hospital in Blantyre. Tamandani would not have survived that journey to Blantyre.

Tamandani’s mother Eunice said:

‘‘Tamandani was eating roasted corn and she choked. At first, we thought she was fine and that the piece had come out, she was playing. But a few hours later she started having problems breathing. Her condition was getting worse and we had to come to the hospital.When we met the doctors, they said that Tamandani would need to have surgery. Then she stopped breathing. I thought we would lose her. In the operating room the surgeon managed to remove the corn and get her breathing again.

We would have lost our child if we had had to travel to Blantyre. 

We thank KidsOR. Our child has been saved."

Tamandani’s father, Gilbert added:

"The situation was very bad; her breathing was noisy, and she was getting worse. We were so desperate, we thought we had lost our child. We thank God that she is fine, she is playing, she has been returned to us. We are so happy to be taking Tamandani home. We thank Dr Nandi, and we thank KidsOR, you have done a great job for us. We thank you so much."

Tamandani and family