Dora

Mama Margret gave birth in a local hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Although she had high blood pressure during the pregnancy, the delivery went well and the whole family welcomed baby Dora.  Five days after her birth, the newborn girl became ill with yellow fever and was rushed to the municipal hospital where she recovered slowly.

“It was only after five months that I understood there was something wrong with my daughter,” explains  Mama Margret, who noticed that Dora couldn’t sit up properly. Once again, Dora was brought to the hospital where the doctors gave her some medication and a referral to CCBRT for physiotherapy where she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.  This was in 2006 and for one year Mama Margret and her husband regularly brought her daughter to CCBRT’s busy physiotherapy department for treatment.  Dora was later transferred to CCBRT’s community programme where treatment continues at people’s homes and at local support units thus avoiding the expense and time spent travelling to and from the hospital.

Mama Kitenge, a CCBRT social worker, has been visiting the family at home every month for the past two years. “I see how this child is improving. Before Dora couldn’t do anything except lie down, but now she is already grasping her toys, she can stand with support and drink out of a plastic cup. We are now working on exercises to help her walk. The mother is practicing daily, and also her older sister is taking very good care for her and gives her lots of affection,” she explains.  

Understanding Dora’s condition was not easy for the family, especially when members of the community suggested that Mama Margret was somehow responsible for it. “I thought that traditional healers were trying to punish me through my daughter.  Mama Kitenge told me it was not my fault and that sometimes these things just happen. Our neighbours were telling me that I had done something wrong to get a daughter like Dora, but now they see her improving and now they keep quiet.”