Champions For Children » Blog Archive » Breathing new life into Suriname’s future

Breathing new life into Suriname’s future

On Wednesday 2nd of July, Clarence went to the opening of the Neonatal Ward at the Academisch Ziekenhuis (Hospital), in the Surinamese capital, Paramaribo.

Champions for Children has donated the funds for new respiratory machines. Until now, the hospital had relied entirely on the 100 per cent oxygen flow technique, which is an imprecise and often dangerous method of care, which meant that the survival rate among prematurely born babies needing respiratory assistance was as low as 15 percent.

Clarence attended the opening with Suriname’s Minister of Public Health, Celsius Waterberg, before unveiling a plaque naming the ward after his grandfather, Freddy Seedorf.

Below is an extract from Clarence’s speech to those attending the opening:

A little over a year ago, a man, a doctor by the name of Dr. Amadu Juliana, came to my foundation with a dream. It was, and is, a dream that was simple to make come true…it would have been equally simple to crush it, by simply ignoring it.

But we have worked together to make it happen. The facts are clear – until today only 15 per cent of premature babies born in the hospital survived. Funds for the technology to prevent this were needed to provide sufficient and correct oxygen flow…in other words to guarantee life itself for newborns struggling with underdeveloped respiratory systems

That was last April. Now, here we are and the dream has become a reality. With this equipment and the know-how being made available to the hospital, survival rates will change dramatically. This ward will raise the survival rate to 80 per cent.

It may be my foundation that is behind this, but it is thanks to the caring doctors and policy makers, that the future for our little champions is getting brighter each day

I am proud that the ward has been named after my grandfather, Freddy Seedorf, because this was his dream too: a present and a future that promised every day to be a better day, that every day should be more full of hope, and where, together, we prove what we are able to make come true.

One of the doctors told me he hoped lot of little soccer players would be helped into life with the new machines. I told him that I hope a lot of little doctors would be too!