Vladimir Mitev, Mediapool, 8 May 2024
While in Bulgaria the controversies and scandals around the children’s hospital project continue, in Romania an NGO managed to build from scratch with donations the equipped building of the country’s first hospital for paediatric radiotherapy and oncology and to hand it over to the state Maria Curie Hospital for Children. Construction lasted 5 years, from 2018 to November 2023. In March 2024, the NGO “Donate Life” (Dăruiește Viață) handed over the hospital to the Romanian Ministry of Health, and now a period is underway in which documents are being reviewed and permits for operation are being granted. Donate Life itself continues to function – both by raising donations and by working towards improving Romanian healthcare in terms of buildings and equipment. The numbers are telling of the scale and importance of what has been realised so far:
- Romania’s first hospital for children with cancer cost €53 million to build and equip;
- More than 350 000 Romanians made donations for the construction of the hospital. The total amount of donations from Romanian individuals is 20 million euros;
- 8,000 companies have sponsored the project. The biggest support has come from energy giant Petrom – 10 million euros;
- The hospital has 9 levels and has sections for oncology, radiotherapy, surgery and neurosurgery;
- The hospital has a cinema and play areas for children.
Other achievements of “Donate Life” include:
- changing a ministerial order that prevents patients from accessing treatment abroad;
- building 20 sterile rooms, tripling Romania’s transplant capacity;
- construction of the first laboratory for in-depth diagnosis of lymphatic cancer in Timisoara and equipping of a similar laboratory at the Fundeni Clinical Institute.
- renovated oncology wards for adults and children in Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj, Brasov
- conducting the first study on the medicines crisis and proposing solutions to the Ministry of Health
- Establishing the Elias 1 Modular Hospital and the Piatra Neamț Intensive Care Unit Modular Hospital for COVID-19 patients and equipping hospitals in over 102 cities across the country with protective equipment and medical devices to combat coronavirus
At the heart of Donate Life’s success is the realisation that the Romanian state is too sluggish, bureaucratic and lacks the enduring political will or determination to implement a children’s hospital project from start to finish on its own. Behind the foundation’s achievement is the understanding that Romanians have the resources, capacity and can organise themselves to bring about large-scale change without having to wait for a big political boss or influential businessman to back them. Such a philosophy is popular among members of the Romanian middle class, as well as the NGO sector, who seem to have greater opportunities and influence than their counterparts in other countries in the region.
Contributing to the success of Donate Life is the possibility allowed by law for individuals in Romania to donate 3.5% of the income tax they pay to NGOs and initiatives of their choice. The corporate sponsorship campaign has also been very successful. For years, the Romanian media has written about the activities of Donate Life, even going so far as to have the rock band Metallica donate the proceeds of the royalties from its song The Unforgiven (EUR 250 000) to the campaign.
An opinion poll carried out in 2023, free of charge on behalf of Donate Life, states that 9 out of 10 urban Romanians have heard of the possibility to redirect 3.5% of their general income tax to NGOs. 47% of them declare that they practice this redirection regularly. Most donations in this way are made to the health sector (32%), aid for orphans or the elderly (27%), improving children’s education (14%) and animal protection (12%)
“People are beginning to understand that redirecting 3.5% of income tax is an elegant and, why not, convenient way to donate to NGOs…. whether it is Donate Life or other NGOs in social welfare, education, etc. Furthermore, we see that there is only a small percentage, 3%, of those who do not fill in the 230 form (through which these donations are made – ed.) who think it is better that this money goes to the state budget,” says Oana Gheorghiu, one of the two founders (along with Carmen Uscatu) of Donate Life.
In a Facebook post from early May 2024, Donate Life stated that 24% of the Romanian population made at least one donation to NGOs in 2023, Donate Life’s efforts are clearly not limited to building a children’s hospital in Bucharest, but also to promoting a culture of giving to the Romanian NGO sector in general and establishing it as an entity capable of making a difference in Romanian society, correcting or complementing the role played by the state in terms of public services.
In mid-April 2024, Romanian radio Europa FM reported that 50 patients had already been transferred to the building built by Donate Life and handed over to the Marie Curie Hospital, and on 15 April 2024 the first operation was carried out. However, the story of the construction of this hospital has not yet reached a complete happening. The Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafilă (a health expert and manager who became a politician with the support of the Social Democratic Party during the Corona crisis), is under attack for the fact that his ministry has not yet issued all the necessary permits for the operation of the hospital built by Donate Life. The NGO’s founders and their supporters expressed in the media in March their lack of understanding of where the problem lies.
“First of all, this is not a foundation hospital… this is a Marie Curie building that had a building permit and owned the use rights to this land. Donate Life Foundation has done a good job, raised money and hired a builder to make this hospital. We do not correspond on the approval and subsequent permit with Donate Life. We are corresponding with the management of the hospital to which this building belongs. The hospital is under the authority of the ministry, but the land belongs to the town hall,” Rafilă said on April 13, 2024, on Prima TV’s Political Insider.
“The hospital does not have all the documents. So we sent people to help them. We have had discussions, so far this is just some information I can give based on the accounting documents. I want us to be transparent and there should be no interpretation. I, for one, grant the presumption of good faith from the outset, and I am convinced that the documents that the Donate Life ladies will produce, which are many and so on, will certify a value that certainly corresponds to what has been previously declared. The equipment has been purchased by Donate Life; it must be donated to the hospital in order for it to carry out its activities there. The hospital is functioning, but these problems must also be resolved, there is nothing we can do. They have to make the donation, not us. They don’t need anything from us, they just need to make a donation for the equipment, with the values of each equipment and the documentation that is the basis of the value of that building so that they can register it in the cadastre,” added Health Minister Rafilă. He further categorised the media pressure on his institution as “a bit inappropriate” because it “does not contain elements that correspond to reality”.
In the meantime, Donate Life is building a second building next to the already completed hospital – a building that will house all of Marie Curie Hospital’s pediatric specialties in the near future. Thus, Marie Curie will become a medical campus with state-of-the-art equipment, procedures and protocols, RFI România points out….
The success of Donate Life is also indicative of the level of trust and social capital in Romanian society, as well as the level of commitment to social causes of its citizens and civil society. But it also builds on a relatively elementary opportunity provided by the Romanian state – namely, the redirection of part of the taxes paid to NGOs. A similar practice exists in the Republic of Moldova. This possibility, combined with the critical mass that seems to emerge more easily in Romania than in Bulgaria, drives societal processes that Bulgarian society may not be familiar with and that could perhaps go in unexpected directions.
It is evident that Romania, and especially Romanian society, has found a formula for building a children’s hospital. For Bulgaria and the Bulgarians, the search continues, and the Romanian experience perhaps provides food for thought.
Photo: The hospital (source: daruiesteviata.ro)
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