PARAMARIBO – Sources told Times of Suriname that everybody is currently sad at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) of the Academic Hospital Paramaribo (AZP), because doctors and nurses had to watch helplessly how newborns who needed urgent medical care passed away these past couple of days.

The people who are stationed at the NICU and the PICU described this situation as an all-time low and labelled it as a black page in the history of Suriname’s pediatric healthcare. Doctors are puzzled by the fact that the hospital allowed things to reach the stage where human lives and in particular that of babies can’t be saved. Last weekend more babies who needed special care were brought to the NICU but they did not make it.

Last Saturday government officials met with the management team of the AZP to discuss possible solutions aimed at guaranteeing optimal care at the NICU. The NICU and the PICU have been hit by a serious brain drain.

More than 60 percent of all of the employees who are highly skilled have reportedly left the nation’s biggest hospital in the past 3 years. De pediatricians 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…[+]