All I want for Christmas is a Maquet Servo-i Ventilator with the Pediatric package. Let me explain:

It’s 2AM and we have to make an impossible decision. We have just intubated (put a breathing tube in) a child. We need to hook her up to a ventilator, a breathing machine that gives mechanical life support.

The problem is that all of them at Tenwek Hospital are in use. All four pediatric patients currently on ventilators have a good chance of recovery, but none would survive coming off the support at this time.

We call the other services, the surgeons and the adult medical teams. Same story. Nothing is available.

Usually in this situation, I choose the patient who is not going to recover and withdraw care. Peering into a patient’s future, judging who will live and who will die, is never certain. This time, I can’t make the call. We decide to buy time until God makes it clear what to do.

So we take turns using a manual bag, each doctor on the pediatrics team taking one-hour shifts pumping air in and out of the child’s lungs by hand. We work and wait and pray that a ventilator becomes available.

Here’s the request: we have the opportunity to buy five additional modern ventilators; will you help us?

Four of them have pediatric/neonatal options, allowing them to be used on even the smallest of infants. All five together will cost us$30,000. This is less than than we would normally have to pay for a single machine!

We ask for your help in raising the remaining $15,000 we need for the purchase. Any additional money we raise beyond that will go to related respiratory equipment.

On behalf of all the staff at Tenwek and the patients whose lives willbe saved, thank you for your generosity.

To give to this project, you can go to:

https://www.wgm.org/project/tenwek-donate

fill in the amount, click “Give,” then click on “Add instructions to the finance office” and write in: Designated for 125-35002 Kenya Tenwek Hosp Equip – ventilators.

Or you can mail a check with a note indicating the same to: World Gospel Mission, P.O. Box 948,, Marion, IN 46952-0948.

-Clark Sleeth, on behalf of the team at Tenwek