Family devastated by infant’s death at daycare centre

A young couple from Soweto is seeking answers after their two-month-old baby died at a day care centre an hour after being dropped off. The tragedy comes after the parents struggled to find childcare when the infant’s mother had to return to work two months after giving birth. The couple had recently moved to Devland in Soweto but had been unable to find a babysitter.

The child’s grandmother lives in KwaZulu-Natal and could not stay with them because they live in a small flat. Thami Mbatha said he dropped off his son, Yamihle Mbatha, at Joy Injabulo Day Care in Freedom Park on January 21. About an hour later, he received a call from the principal asking him to return to the centre urgently, saying the child had stopped breathing.

Mbatha told Sowetan the call left him alarmed, as the principal sounded panicked and out of breath. “I usually bottle-feed my son every morning before taking him to day care. About an hour later, I received a call saying something had happened and that my baby was not breathing,” he said.

[paywall]

Mbatha said when he arrived at the centre, he found Yamihle lying unresponsive on the floor, with discolouration around his lips and signs of bleeding from his nose. “Because I was far [from the crèche], I first called my wife and told her what had happened. When I finally arrived, I could see from my child’s condition that he was no longer alive,” he said.

Mbatha said the principal, Nomathemba Ntuli, told him she had tried calling an ambulance but struggled to get through. The pair then rushed Yamihle to Lilian Ngoyi Clinic in an Uber, but despite the medical staff’s efforts to resuscitate him, he was declared dead. “The doctor asked us to sit down, as my wife had also arrived from work.

She explained that the case would be treated as an inquest because the manner of death was questionable,” Mbatha said. He said that doctors informed him that toxicology tests were being conducted, which suggested Yamihle may have ingested something poisonous.

[/paywall]