site.btaFounders of Romania’s First Paediatric Oncology Hospital to Expand Operation

The first paediatric medical campus will be built in Romania in the next five years, BTA learned from Oana Gheorghiu and Carmen Uscatu of the Give Life Association, who created the country's first paediatric oncology hospital with only private donations, including from the heavy metal band Metallica.

"We built a hospital, but our dream doesn't stop there. We are excited to share with you the second phase of this project, agreed through our partnership with MS Curie Hospital and the Ministry of Health. We want MS Curie to become the first paediatric medical campus in Romania, as well as a base for South-East Europe," Gheorghiu said.

"The hospital, built only with the help of donations and sponsorships, was inaugurated on April 16, 2024, when five departments of the MS Curie Children's Hospital in Bucharest were moved here: oncology, neurosurgery, surgery, intensive care, and an operating room. We built it with the patients, their families and the staff in mind. We did this together with the help of more than 350,000 individual donors and 8,000 companies," Uscatu recounted. 

More than 3,500 patients were treated last year at Romania's first children's cancer hospital. More than 4,000 operations were performed during this period. 

Initially planned as a three-storey clinic, the project became a hospital covering 12,000 sqm, 9 levels, over 140 beds, and five operating theatres. "This is the biggest civic engagement initiative in Romania," Carmen Uscatu and Oana Gheorghiu said. 

On the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the hospital's official opening, Romania's acting president Ilie Bolojan toured the facility on April 23 with the Give Life Association team and discussed the importance of this project for the Romanian healthcare system, the presidential administration said.