site.btaFounders of Romania's First Cancer Hospital for Children Urge Bulgarians to Demand from State to Build Children's Hospital

The two women who were behind the project for building Romania's first cancer hospital for children, Oana Gheorghiu and Carmen Uscatu of the Give Life Association, have one piece of advice for Bulgarian people: go vote, be careful who you are voting for and then demand of the elected ones to build a children's hospital. BTA interviewed the two women days after the opening of the children's cancer hospital in Bucharest.

"On the other hand, there is always a need for involvement of non-government organizations and the civil society because the State is not always in a position to cover all needs. This is why we call on people to unite," they said.

Bulgaria does not have a state-of-the-art children's hospital and the project has been on the agenda for years but is yet to start.

The hospital that Oana Gheorghiu and Carmen Uscatu helped set up, was built on donations from 8,000 companies and 350,000 individuals, among them the heavy metal band Metallica. The hospital opened in mid-April. BTA was the first Bulgarian news media admitted to the hospital to film a sequel to its "Hospital of Hope" documentary. 

BTA was the first Bulgarian news media admitted to the hospital to film a sequel to its "Hospital of Hope" documentary. 

"We made a hospital in Romania out of desperation that nothing was happening. But in fact - and by law - we are citizens and we need to be more demanding of those who are paid to run the country. So my first advice to the people of Bulgaria, who have lost hope that they will ever have a children's hospital, is go vote, think carefully about who you are going to elect, and once you elect them, demand that they do their job,'" Oana Gheorghiu told BTA. She argued that people in Bulgaria should demand that the State build hospitals. 

"We have found an opportunity to bring children from the Republic of Moldova for treatment in Romania because certain medical services are lacking in their country, and things could be similar for Bulgaria," said she. She believes that it is the duty of countries with larger populations and more resources to help children from neighbouring countries.

Carmen Uscatu said that building the hospital was "the beginning of a dream", not all of it. The dream is "to see results in the treatment of a child with cancer in Romania and to say ‘Look, we are really in Europe’”. “At the moment, the results in Romania, and in Eastern Europe in general, are very different from those in Western Europe. So we hope for a place where a child has the same chance of surviving in Romania as it would in Western Europe or the United States," she said.  

Oana Gheorghiu said that the hospital building also has a huge impact on people. "It is a proof that we can, that we Romanians are able to come together to do good. It brought a lot of energy to the society and a lot of hope. We have been through a lot and we are still in a complicated period. There was a pandemic for several years, then the war started, now there are more than one. There is more and more talk of conflict on a global level and people have less and less hope for good.” 

The two agree that despite the hardships, there was never a time they considered giving up their plan for the children's hospital.

"There hasn't been a moment where we wanted to give up because we always remembered why we do what we are doing. We do all of this for the children who one day understand that they can't live out their childhood, and for the parents who one day get the news of a scary diagnosis. We do it for the doctors and nurses who face similar difficult situations every day and can sometimes feel helpless because of the working conditions, because of things missing in the system," said Carmen Uscatu. 

Gheorghiu admits that the most disappointing moment was when the hospital was ready and the equipment was there but there were no patients. "And it was frustrating because the whole state apparatus was bent on holding us back: it was too busy with red tape and paperwork, with checking invoices, and cared little for the fate of the children. It was a frustrating moment that we could stand only for a while - until it was too much and we said this cannot go on. We rebelled, the people around us reacted, the public reacted in such a way that the Health Ministry saw what it was doing was wrong."

Gheorghiu and Uscatu are now raising funds for the next project: a conversion of the Marie Curie Hospital into a medical campus, which will be the first of its kind in Romania. Oana says for that they need to partner with the Romanian state, with the Marie Curie Hospital and with the Ministry of Health. "For now, we are holding discussions. We are trying to find out if any progress will be made. We believe so, we hope so," Gheorghiu said.

Carmen Uscatu explained that their role is to mobilize support. "That means mobilizing people and companies to donate. Mobilizing medical staff to offer quality services. And why not mobilizing politicians and authorities to look at this hospital and not pretend that it does not exist – and see the potential and let look together with us for solutions through which we can build a health system that delivers such quality that it creates confidence in patient." 

She said that Doctors from abroad will come here to work, and local doctors will go abroad. Nurses will also be trained. "We have access to molecular analyses that are not done in Romania. We are sending the analyses of all Marie Curie children diagnosed with cancer to Princess Maxima in Utrecht in the Netherlands, the largest paediatric oncology clinic in Europe."

Uscatu also said, "You know, a healthcare system can be very easily assessed by the decision a politician makes about themselves: to get treated in their own country or abroad. I would like us to enter into these partnerships that would bring about this change at the hospital level here, first at Marie Curie, which would then have a multiplier effect and allow a Romanian politician to choose to be treated in a hospital in Romania for a serious health condition."