Mom Nosiphosanele Tunya is dreading going back home after the death of her baby in Frere Hospital

Her three-day old baby boy had been undergoing treatment in the Eastern Cape hospital's paediatric intensive care unit to correct a birth defect.

The first leg of the surgery had already taken place.

The unnamed baby was born at St Barnabas Hospital in Libode on Sunday evening with gastrochisis - a condition in which some of his internal organs were protruding from his abdomen.

Initial infection control measures had been made and an emergency call was made to transfer him to East London .

The 21-year-old mother, from Lwandile Village in Libode, and her new-born baby were rushed to Frere Hospital on Monday by helicopter.

He was in a critical condition upon arrival.

A two-hour operation to reinsert some of his organs into his abdomen and place the rest in sterile plastic bags was performed the same evening.

The hospital's head of paediatric surgery, Dr Milind Chitnis, said the baby's condition started deteriorating during Wednesday, prompting medical staff to increase his dose of antibiotics to stop infection spreading .

He was put on a ventilator and was being fed through a special catheter inserted into a vein near his heart.

"He had an infection from his exposed bowels, and once that reached the heart and kidneys, it became a problem," Chitnis said.

A senior team of doctors monitored the baby closely, and the best available care was given to him.

But he died during the night.

Tunya said that although she had accepted her baby's death, she could not come to terms with it, especially since she had come a long way to get help.

"When I saw him on Wednesday he wasn't looking well and although the doctors explained that he was only getting worse, I hoped that he would pick up."

On Tuesday the mother said she could not wait to take her baby back home, especially since not many relatives had seen him.

She said although she could not spend much time with him because he was in the paediatric intensive care unit, she cherished those moments when she could go in and see him.

Between sobs she told the Dispatch: "I don't know how I will go home without him. I am heartbroken".

Gastrochisis, medical experts said, was neither rare nor too common.

Surgery to replace the bowels into the abdomen and close the defect was possible, depending on the severity of the situation, they said.

If the abdominal cavity was too small, a mesh sack could be stitched around the defect and over time, the herniated intestine would fall back into the abdominal cavity, and it could be closed.