The black symbol in Suriname hospitals: “It is very touching”

A complete lockdown has been announced in Suriname for the next two and a half weeks. For hospitals, the black symbol is being implemented as of Monday, for Suriname as the purple country code, it is the highest level of risk within the Surinamese community there are many concerns about family members who live in Suriname.

Sasha Rowling is a doctor at a hospital in Paramaribo. “People arrive exhausted because they haven’t had proper treatment for a while.” Rowling finds the young age of the patients to be the most intense. “Forty-year-old people die an hour after being hospitalized.” She says there is no longer a place for these folks in the IC or a ventilator room.

Concerns about relatives in Suriname

Roy Carter, host of the radio show Mart, gets calls daily from listeners interested in the situation in Suriname. “What you’re hearing is that people are very anxious about their loved ones,” says Carter. Amsterdam residents on the street are also anxious. “Mother and grandmother still lives there, so I’m worried about my family”

The Netherlands will send vaccines

The Dutch Ministry of Health announced on Friday that it will send between 500,000 to 750,000 AstraZeneca vaccines to Suriname due to the risky situation. These vaccines will be delivered by the end of June at the earliest. “The numbers are going up very, very dramatically, so by the end of the month there will be a lot of deaths. Not just the dead, but the sick as well,” Rowling says of the late delivery. “The more the better.”