When little Henu Pienaar was born, his parents never imagined the difficult journey they were about to embark on. Henu was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). This rare congenital heart defect occurs during pregnancy when the left side of the heart does not develop correctly, affecting normal blood flow through the heart.
This condition requires three major heart surgeries to reconstruct the heart from four chambers to just two. At only 10 days old, Henu underwent his first heart surgery, which was successful. At six months old, he had this second heart surgery, which also went as planned.
However, when Henu was three years old, just a week before his third and final surgery, he contracted the flu. The illness affected his heart, leading to cardiac arrest, which caused Cardiomyopathy, leaving his heart too weak to survive the planned surgery. As a result, he was placed on a waiting list for a heart transplant, his only option for a healthy heart.
Little did his parents know they would wait six long years before a suitable donor heart became available. During this time, Henu had to take medication to remain relatively healthy, although he couldn’t participate in all the same activities as other children his age.
Finally, in August 2026, Henu’s mother Melanie, received the call they had all been waiting for; a donor heart had been found. He underwent the life-changing heart transplant at Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital on 25 August 2026. The operation was a great success, and Henu spent the next five weeks recovering in the hospital. “I don’t know exactly how many units of blood he received, but it was a lot,” Melanie recalls, referring to the numerous units of whole blood, plasma, platelets, sourced frozen plasma and cryoprecipitate he received during the surgery and his recovery in hospital.
Henu has been home for a week and is doing well, but he still faces a long road to recovery. He needs to remain isolated as much as possible, and when he ventures out, he wears a mask to protect himself from germs and infections. According to Melanie, he’s not thrilled about missing school and not seeing his grade 2 friends, as he’s a very social child. For now, he’ll be spending time with his older brother Benn and eagerly awaits returning to school in the new year. Henu is particularly excited about the prospect of playing sports with the other kids, something he couldn’t do before the transplant.
In South Africa, fewer than 0.2% of the population are registered organ donors, and finding donors for children is even more challenging. Fewer than 1% of the Western Cape population are registered blood donors, and the Western Cape Blood Service is working diligently to increase this figure to at least 1%.
Henu’s family is forever grateful to the family who chose to donate a heart and to all the blood donors whose donations made his surgery and recovery possible. Henu’s journey highlights the critical importance of organ and blood donation. His story is not just a medical triumph but a call to action for greater awareness and participation in organ and blood donation to save lives.
