Healthcare sector in critical condition

PARAMARIBO – Since 2021 the Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU) and the Paediatric Intensive Care (PICU) of the Academic Hospital Paramaribo (AZP) have been suffering from brain drain. Brain drain refers to the emigration of highly skilled and educated individuals from one country to another, creating a significant loss for the nation left behind. More than 60 percent of all of the employees who are highly skilled have left the nation’s biggest hospital in the past 3 years.

De paediatricians have sounded the alarm repeatedly and have made it clear that the nation’s health sec­tor is on the brink of collapse. In 2022 concerned parents presented their peti­tions to parliament after babies who did not get proper healthcare had died. But to this day the situation has not improved and has in fact only gotten worse. In 2022 the AZP was forced to reduce the number of hospital beds at his Paediatric Ward from 27 to 11. The number of hospital beds at the AZP’s NICU was also reduced from 10 to 5 that year because half of the people who worked there went abroad to seek a better future. Since 2022 things have only gone downhill at the NICU and the PICU. In the past the AZP asked the other hospitals if their nurses could lend a helping hand but that is no longer possible because those hospitals are also suffering from brain drain phenomenon. A concerned medical specialist expressed grave concern over the fact that the nation’s healthcare sector is cur­rently in critical condition. “How many times must we sound the alarm?” The NICU and the PICU have evidently sounded the alarm six times in the past three years. They made it clear that they need more manpower stat in order to guaran­tee optimal healthcare. …[+]