AP: Romania launches anti-smoking campaign featuring graphic photographs on cigarette packs

BUCHAREST, Romania: The Romanian Health Ministry says it is launching a campaign to dissuade people from smoking by placing graphic photographs on cigarette cartons.

The ministry says the anti-smoking campaign starting July 1 will include 14 images showing how cigarettes can harm the health of smokers as well as their children.

Research shows that smoking kills 33,000 Romanians every year. Health Minister Eugen Nicolaescu says 5 million Romanians smoke. Romania has a population of 22 million.

One campaign image released Thursday shows the foot of a corpse with the warning "Smokers die younger." Another shows a child wearing a gas mask to protect from inhaling smoke.

Romania Opens Centre for HIV/AIDS Patients

BalkanInsight.com

24 June 2008 Bucharest _ Romania’s Health Minister has opened a new centre to house the National Organisation of the People with HIV/AIDS.

At the opening ceremony, Eugen Nicolaescu said the Romanian Government pays € 31 million per year for the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients with HIV/AIDS.

”The worst enemy is not the virus itself, but the ignorance, the fear, the lack of knowledge of the others, that is why patients with AIDS have such difficulties to integrate in society,” Nicolaescu pointed out.

Romania became infamous in 1990 for the squalid orphanages and babies dying of AIDS that marked the final years of Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship.

The country has only about 10,000 infected people, but the vast majority of these were injected with contaminated blood as infants, from 1987 to 1991.

Romanian doctors gave ''micro-transfusions'' of blood to anemic babies. They also used immunoglobulins, made from blood products, for relatively minor illnesses. School nurses reused vaccination needles.

Nicolaescu said Romania is one of the first countries which introduced free treatment to AIDS patients and this year is working on a wide-ranging programme to tackle the spread of the virus.

This includes facilities for testing pregnant women and vulnerable people, the decentralisation of treatment and public awareness campaigns about AIDS and how it is transmitted.

Romania set to ban approved GM corn crop

By Andrew Bounds in Brussels and Thomas Escritt in Bucharest

Published: March 28 2008 02:53

The Financial Times

Romania intends to join six other European Union members in banning the only genetically modified crop approved for use in the bloc, its environment minister said on Thursday, in a fresh blow to the biotechnology industry.

Attila Korodi called for a moratorium on planting MON810, a corn produced by Monsanto, the US company, and said his country’s bio-security committee would start examining the possibility of a ban on April 15.

Romania, a major agricultural producer, was a big grower of GM crops before it joined the EU last year.

Mr Korodi told the Financial Times a ban was likely as the committee would examine studies used by Hungary and France to justify their recent prohibition of MON810 because of its negative impact on the environment.

“If they say they have concerns, then we will ask the European Commission for a temporary ban,” he said. “We simply don’t know what its environmental impact will be.”

Italy, Austria, Greece and Poland have also banned the insect-resistant corn, claiming that the toxin it contains could be harmful to other wildlife. However, the Commission, which regulates the market, has yet to sanction their bans.

Stavros Dimas, the environment commissioner, has asked the European Food Safety Authority for an expert evaluation of MON810 and recommended that two similar products not be allowed on to the market because of environmental concerns.

Polls have shown most Romanians do not want to eat GM food, in tune with public attitudes in most EU countries.

Greenpeace, the environmental group, welcomed the news. “The Romanian people overwhelmingly reject this unsafe, unnecessary and unsustainable technology. It is vital the ban is in place as soon as possible, so natural crops can be safe from GM contamination before the sowing season starts,” said Gabriel Paun of Greenpeace Romania.

Europabio, which represents biotech companies, said the concerns were baseless and the bans would hurt farmers.

“The specific biotech maize has also been the subject of thorough scientific reviews by scientific communities around the world and has received positive approvals by the world’s most robust approval systems, as well as EFSA,” it said in a statement.

Romania Bans Junk Food in Schools

BalkanInsight.com

13 May 2008 Bucharest _ The Chamber of Deputies in Romania’s Parliament has voted to restrict the sale of junk food in Romania’s schools.

Under the rules, the Health Ministry must establish a list of food products which are not recommended for children, especially ones rich in fat, sugar or additives that are considered unhealthy.

Meals served in school canteens will have to be approved by nutrition specialists accredited by the Health Ministry.

The Chamber’s backing of the vote was decisive since the Senate had already adopted the bill.

One deputy in the chamber, Ecaterina Andronescu, claimed there are even outlets in children’s playgrounds which are selling unhealthy, junk food.

Another deputy, Sorin Paveliu, said this law was necessary to prevent obesity and diseases linked to a unsatisfactorily varied died, which is increasingly becoming a problem among young people in Romania.

Such problems could overburden Romania’s healthcare system in the coming decades.

He also proposed that this kind of food should be marked with warnings that it is not healthy, as is the case with cigarettes.

Still other deputies think it is not right to tell someone what he can eat, as fast food is often cheaper than milk, honey or other healthy products.

Romania voices HIV/AIDS victims’ struggles

20 Dec 2007 12:27:10 GMT

Source: World Vision Middle East/Eastern Europe office (MEERO)

Thousands of Romanians were sensitized to the struggles HIV positive persons face each day as a result of activities organized by World Vision to commemorate World AIDS Day in December. In Romania there are approximately 12,000 persons living with HIV, according to the Health Ministry National Commission to Fight Against AIDS.

'We believe World AIDS Day is an important time to draw people's attention to this epidemic and to sensitize the community to the HIV/AIDS problem,' said Cristina Marin, Together for Health Project coordinator, World Vision Valcea Area Development Program (ADP).

In Valcea city, 210 km northwest of the capital city Bucharest, World Vision raised community awareness and sensitivity to persons living with AIDS through the 'Say 'No' to Discrimination!' campaign, in honor of both World AIDS Day and the International Day of Disabled Persons, also in December. Flyers and advocacy materials were distributed to the community and a red ribbon, the symbol of solidarity of people living with AIDS, was hung in the middle of a major shopping center. Two days later, community members arranged candles and red ribbon, and released balloons.

Volunteers made a red ribbon from candles and grouped together to form a human red ribbon at an event that honored those who have died of AIDS.

In Constanta, 190 km east of Bucharest, World Vision organized a round table where media representatives were informed on HIV/AIDS. In addition, World Vision staff and volunteers shared their work with HIV positive persons and personal messages from HIV infected youth who participate in World Vision's 'Together for Future' project in Constanta County.

At the roundtable, media representatives learned that HIV positive persons are legally considered people with disabilities, a fact of which even most local authorities are ignorant. Local authorities are poorly informed of HIV/AIDS and believe laws protecting people with disabilities only apply to people with physical or mental impairments. Hence, laws that protect the rights of persons with disabilities are seldom enforced for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Moreover, many banks are unaware that HIV positive people are legally considered disabled and do not offer HIV positive people and their families special loans for which people with disabilities are eligible. For example, the families of HIV positive children, teenagers and youth are qualified to access a type of loan supported by the State to purchase items to support their special needs.

In Romania, people living with HIV/AIDS suffer discrimination and lack of opportunity due to their condition. In some cases managers unlawfully require new employees to undergo a medical review, even though such a review is unnecessary for employment and new employees' medical conditions are irrelevant to the position(s).

HIV positive youth are separated from HIV negative youth in schools due to the public's ignorance of how HIV is transmitted and indifference towards the disease and those who suffer from it. Parents and teachers are particularly reluctant to allow HIV positive students to study at the same desks as HIV negative students.

Also, children with HIV/AIDS frequently miss school due to extended periods of hospitalization, causing many of them to not begin high school until they are 18-19 years old. Romanian law forbids children's registration in a daily education program if the children are two or more years older than the age level of the class in which they want to register, which means that many HIV positive children are 'too old' to enrol in school. Some of these children resort to studying during the evening and weekend in order to complete their education, though it takes them longer to finish school this way. In addition, HIV positive children do not benefit from coaching, long distance education or special lectures that may help them recuperate because such programs are in small supply and frequently inaccessible to people living with HIV.

Orphanages Stunt Mental Growth, a Study Finds

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: December 21, 2007
The New York Times

Psychologists have long believed that growing up in an institution like an orphanage stunts children’s mental development but have never had direct evidence to back it up.

Now they do, from an extraordinary years-long experiment in Romania that compared the effects of foster care with those of institutional child-rearing.

The study, being published on Friday in the journal Science, found that toddlers placed in foster families developed significantly higher I.Q.’s by age 4, on average, than peers who spent those years in an orphanage.

The difference was large — eight points — and the study found that the earlier children joined a foster family, the better they did. Children who moved from institutional care to families after age 2 made few gains on average, though the experience varied from child to child. Both groups, however, had significantly lower I.Q.’s than a comparison group of children raised by their biological families.

Some developmental psychologists had sharply criticized the study and its sponsor, the MacArthur Foundation, for researching a question whose answer seemed obvious. But previous attempts to compare institutional and foster care suffered from serious flaws, mainly because no one knew whether children who landed in orphanages were different in unknown ways from those in foster care. Experts said the new study should put to rest any doubts about the harmful effects of institutionalization — and might help speed up adoptions from countries that still allow them.

“Most of us take it as almost intuitive that being in a family is better for humans than being in an orphanage,” said Seth Pollak, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the research. “But other governments don’t like to be told how to handle policy issues based on intuition.

“What makes this study important,” he went on, “is that it gives objective data to say that if you’re going to allow international adoptions, then it’s a good idea to speed things up and get kids into families quickly.”

In recent years many countries, including Romania, have banned or sharply restricted American families from adopting local children. In other countries, adoption procedures can drag on for many months. In 2006, the latest year for which numbers are available, Americans adopted 20,679 children from abroad, more than half of them from China, Guatemala and Russia.

The authors of the new paper, led by Dr. Charles H. Zeanah Jr. of Tulane and Charles A. Nelson III of Harvard and Children’s Hospital in Boston, approached Romanian officials in the late 1990s about conducting the study. The country had been working to improve conditions at its orphanages, which became infamous in the early 1990s as Dickensian warehouses for abandoned children.

After gaining clearance from the government, the researchers began to track 136 children who had been abandoned at birth. They administered developmental tests to the children, and then randomly assigned them to continue at one of Bucharest’s six large orphanages, or join an adoptive family. The foster families were carefully screened and provided “very high-quality care,” Dr. Nelson said.

On I.Q. tests taken at 54 months, the foster children scored an average of 81, compared to 73 among the children who continued in an institution. The children who moved into foster care at the youngest ages tended to show the most improvement, the researchers found.

The comparison group of youngsters who grew up in their biological families had an average I.Q. of 109 at the same age, found the researchers, who announced their preliminary findings as soon in Romania as they were known.

“Institutions and environments vary enormously across the world and within countries,” Dr. Nelson said, “but I think these findings generalize to many situations, from kids in institutions to those in abusive households and even bad foster care arrangements.”

In setting up the study, the researchers directly addressed the ethical issue of assigning children to institutional care, which was suspected to be harmful. “If a government is to consider alternatives to institutional care for abandoned children, it must know how the alternative compares to the standard care it provides. In Romania, this meant comparing the standard of care to anew and alternative form of care,” they wrote.

Any number of factors common to institutions could work to delay or blunt intellectual development, experts say: the regimentation, the indifference to individual differences in children’s habits and needs; and most of all, the limited access to caregivers, who in some institutions can be responsible for more than 20 children at a time.

“The evidence seems to say,” said Dr. Pollak, of Wisconsin, “that for humans, we need a lot of responsive care giving, an adult who recognizes our distinct cry, knows when we’re hungry or in pain, and gives us the opportunity to crawl around and handle different things, safely, when we’re ready.”

Health team in visit to Romania hospital

Daily Echo Dorset

A team of mental health workers from Dorset who have just returned from an exchange visit to Romania have spoken of their humbling experience. The four-strong party from Weymouth and Dorchester travelled to Mocrea Psychiatric Hospital, which is home to 115 patients.

They handed over donations to the hospital and a nearby orphanage - and now hope to welcome a nurse from Mocrea to Dorset. Weymouth and Portland community mental health team recovery team manager Malcolm Jarman and his secretary Jayne Quinn went on the exchange visit.

They were joined by Forston Clinic occupational therapist Helen Nicholson and Dorchester community mental health team occupational therapist Sarah Chubb. Patients at Mocrea Psychiatric Hospital all wear dressing gowns - because most do not have their own clothes - and are sedated to make life easier for them and staff. advertisement

A new hospital is being built in the area to give patients more space and enable them to have their own responsibilities.

Helen said: "It was a difficult, touching and enriching experience.

"We take our service for granted and even moan about it, but this is actually a result of decades of battling prejudices, fighting for improve government legislation, researching illness and medication and taking on an ingrained culture to develop client-centred care.

"It made me grateful I work in this imperfect and ever-changing area, knowing we're still moving forward and places like Mocrea also exist in our recent history and that they are moving forward too."

The team handed over donations to the hospital which will be used to buy numerous winter items such as hats, gloves and socks.

Jayne said: "The managers of the hospital are always very grateful for the donations. It supplements the inadequate sum they receive for each patient from the government which covers all aspects of patient care including medication, heating, food, water and general life situations."

The group also gave £500 to an orphanage, raised by St Aldhelm's Church mother and toddler group in Spa Road, Weymouth.

They now hope to welcome one of the Mocrea nurses with an interest in occupational therapy to Dorset to learn more about it.

Sarah said it would be an enormous boost for staff and patients at the hospital.

She added: "I felt quite humble to spend time with such inspirational people. It was quite strange that the clinical staff at Mocrea were most focused on sedating patients while the managers had views and aspirations more similar to current psychiatric care in the West."

Romania: migratory birds bring bird flu

BUCHAREST, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- Poultry in Romanian eastern county Tulcea was contaminated with the bird flu virus from migratory birds, the National Sanitary Veterinary and Animal Safety Authority announced on Thursday.

Fodder for the poultry bred in the contaminated household came from a region intensely sought by wild birds, according to the preliminary epidemiological investigation.

At a meeting held on Thursday, the Tulcea County Anti-epizootic Command decided to have the local Hunters and Fishermen Association organize test hunts of wild birds and collect the bodies for specific lab tests.

According to data presented in the report of the Danube Delta Biosphere Natural Reserve, 6,800 wild birds were tracked here on Wednesday.

The Romanian Institute for Animal Diagnosis and Health confirmed on Wednesday the bird flu outbreak, the H5N1 virus strain, after a laboratory testing of samples taken from dead chickens in a household at Murighiol of Tulcea County.

Romania says bird flu found in Danube Delta, 90 hens and ducks slaughtered

CONSTANTA, Romania (AP) - Bird flu was detected on a small farm in Romania's eastern Danube Delta, leading authorities to slaughter 90 hens and ducks to prevent the disease from spreading, officials said Wednesday.

Preliminary tests on 15 birds that died at the farm showed they were infected with the H5 subtype of bird flu, Tulcea county official Lefter Chirica said. Further tests were being conducted in Bucharest to determine if it was the deadly H5N1 strain, which has killed dozens of people around the world, Chirica said.

No quarantine has been imposed around the farm, located in Murighiol, a delta village some 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of the capital, Bucharest. But authorities were disinfecting vehicles in the area, as well as the shoes of those traveling through on foot.

Since 2003, it has killed at least 206 people worldwide, and it has ravaged poultry stocks in Asia, where it was first detected. Scientists believe it spread to Europe and to Africa with migratory wild birds.

In Europe in recent years, H5N1 has been found in France, Switzerland, Germany and elsewhere. In Romania, hundreds of birds died of bird flu 2005 and 2006, many in the Danube Delta, but there have been no cases of human infection in Romania.

Human cases have been recorded in Turkey and Azerbaijan, though bird flu is difficult for humans to catch. Experts fear, however, that it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.

Experts believe most victims were probably infected through direct contact with sick birds.

Romania: Healthcare Shortage

Oxford Business Group Latest Briefing

This week the European Commission (EC) called on 21 EU member countries to officially recognise Romanian and Bulgarian diplomas. The commission said that not doing so was not only a violation of EU law - which the commission promised to press in the European Court of Justice - but it is also a violation of one of the fundamental goals of the EU treaty: the free movement of people.

Many would expect such an announcement to be greeted with enthusiasm by the Romanian government, which has complained of second-class treatment from other EU member states. The reality however is more complicated.

The dramatic growth Romania has undergone in the past few years has stretched the country's labour market in almost every industry. While low- to medium-skilled sectors such as construction have been most badly hit, highly skilled labourers are becoming increasingly hard to find.

Fewer skilled workers in information technology, banking and management will hurt the Romanian economy and ultimately translate into slower growth, higher costs and erosion of the quality and quantity of services. These shortages, however, are not as alarming as the lack of medical staff that the country is currently facing.

Shortages of doctors, nurses and technicians have been widely reported by regional officials and the ministry of health. Analysts have said the wages the government offers its medical professionals are far below the international norm. They claim that these wages, combined with strong demand in countries like the UK and Germany, are luring Romanian doctors and nurses away from the country in droves.

A recent survey done by the Iasi County Medical College confirmed these claims. The survey showed that more than 50% of Romanian doctors and 75% of medical specialists said they plan to leave the country. For 48% of the doctors interviewed, wages were the primary reason to go elsewhere, while 40% blamed the poor organisation of the nation's healthcare system.

Among the doctors surveyed, 40% said they earn below 300 euros per month, while 15% responded they make over 500 euros a month. By contrast a starting intern in Germany can expect to earn 1800 euros per month.

Equally worrying is the pessimistic view many Romanian doctors have of the national healthcare system. One out of five doctors answered that current reforms will be ineffective, while an additional 61% responded they believe no progress is being made.

Given the disparity in wages and the negative attitude medical professionals have towards their local industry, it is no wonder they plan to leave.

If the EC is successful in getting Romanian diplomas recognised throughout the EU, it will only accelerate this trend.

Contrary to the expectations of many, EU accession did not give the country's citizens full access to Western Europe's labour markets. Most member states were quick to erect barriers to stem the flow of what they perceive to be poorly trained Romanian workers. Currently, Romanian diplomas are fully recognized only in the Netherlands, Finland, Lithuania, Slovenia and Bulgaria.

While some Romanian professionals have already been able to leave the country, the bureaucratic roadblocks that are associated with certification in other EU member states have deterred many others. This is particularly a problem for Romanian medical professionals, who must undergo a series of examinations to prove their credentials.

Although these obstacles are not popular among Romanian medical personnel who can command better salaries in Western Europe than they can at home, they have provided some relief to Romania's already stretched medical system by keeping them home.

The urgency of this problem came to light earlier this month when the ministry of health announced it would introduce a series of drastic measures designed to limit the right of Romanian doctors to work abroad. "The government is preparing a bill aimed at toughening the conditions under which medical workers trained in Romania, at the state's cost, can work abroad," said Health Minister Eugen Nicolaescu.

While Nicolaescu has not revealed any details about the new policy, it is clear that any bill restricting the movement of Romanian doctors would be in direct opposition to the goals laid out by the EC this week. This pill might be hard to swallow for many Romanians who have waited a long time for entry into the EU labour market.

New outbreak of swine fever in Romania

BUCHAREST (AFP) — Some 2,500 pigs are to be slaughtered next week after a new outbreak of swine fever was found in a natural park in eastern Romania, local veterinary authorities said Thursday.

"The slaughtering and incineration of the pigs will begin Monday," the head of the local veterinary authority Gicu Dragan told AFP.

The outbreak was discovered last week and confirmed by the Institute for Veterinary Diagnosis and Animal Health, Dragan said.

The pigs are partly wild and come from private farms located around the uninhabited park near Braila, he added.

Some 50,000 pigs were already slaughtered in August in three farms in western Timis county belonging to the US company Smithfield, after swine fever was discovered there.

Romanian authorities had announced in June that they had eradicated the last case of the disease, after discovering 716 outbreaks around the country in 2006.

Following the most recent cases, Brussels decided last month to extend its embargo on Romanian pork until the end of 2009.

Romania: Law to Slow Exodus of Doctors

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Published: October 9, 2007

The health minister announced plans to limit the right of young doctors to work abroad as a survey showed that almost 50 percent of them were ready to seek better-paid jobs elsewhere. The new legislation would include a requirement for young doctors to practice at home for twice as many years as they spent in training before they could obtain a certificate allowing them to work abroad. A medical intern earns about $210 a month, while a specialist working in a hospital earns about $700, according to official figures.

IN DEPTH: Roma Dream of Better Health in Romania

26 09 2007 Despite rhetoric that Roma health is a priority, Romanian authorities fail to improve conditions in Bucharest’s largest Roma neighborhood.

By Marian Chiriac and Daniel Ganga in Bucharest

Almost every morning, as soon as dawn breaks, Gogu takes his cart filled with odd bits of scrap metal and slowly pulls it to a recycling center. He unloads his cart there and, in return, he gets a meagre sum of money that barely pays his meal for the day. Then he goes home.

What Gogu, also known as Ion Gogonet, does every day is not at all uncommon for many people who live in Ferentari. Located at the southern end of Bucharest, Ferentari is a large neighborhood, something in between a slum and a ghetto.

Several warehouses, a couple of dubious pubs, a few run-down stores, one little park which appears more grey than green and one soup kitchen facility away, there is Zabrautului Street.

The area is well-known for its one-room apartments in horrible five-storey buildings, with clothes hung up to dry and small windows where, every now and then, a woman’s head sticks out to shout at the kids playing with a ball below, alongside stray dogs who scour the heaps of garbage.

Here, in this ghetto-like fetid yet lively world, lives Ion Gogonet, a 50-year-old Roma man.

His one-room apartment is just 16 metres square; it includes a small kitchen and a three- square-metre bathroom. It is however connected to the electricity and running water supply systems, which, according to the dwellers, is a major improvement since not so long ago the buildings were bereft of such basic public utilities.

This is the home of Gogonet’s family: his partner, Ilie Stela, 33, and three children, two of whom already attend elementary school. Their father has to stay in a separate bed because he has had tuberculosis. He had 72 holes in his lungs and, because of his unhealthy and destitute lifestyle, he had become very ill. Yet, he refused to see a doctor, partly out of carelessness and partly out of shame and fear so that he would not to be exposed to his friends.

It was only two years ago that he was persuaded by a health care adviser to start treatment for TB. He is healthy now, even if he is still suffering from some after-effects. At least he is no longer contagious.

Gogonet is just one of the beneficiaries of a TB prevention and treatment campaign set up by several, mainly American-based, NGOs, and financed by the US Agency for International Development, USAID.

The reason for starting this campaign was that Romania has the highest incidence of tuberculosis in Europe, and the number of TB cases doubled in the 1990s. According to official statistics, in 2006, the incidence of tuberculosis across Romania was 117.8 per 100,000 inhabitants.


However, Roma communities are about ten times more affected by TB than the rest of the population, according to epidemiological data. The causes for this include limited access to public health services, very little knowledge of health issues, widespread illiteracy, living in very crowded and insalubrious places and poverty in general.

Taves Bahtalo!

The Roma greet each other every day with the words, Taves bahtalo – meaning, “Be healthy”. Good health is something every human being appreciates, regardless of their ethnic origin, especially in Romania, where the public health system is still in a poor condition.

According to a survey carried out in April by the Romanian Center for Economic Policies, CEROPE, the amount earmarked for health in Romania is a mere $470 per annum per capita, well below the world average of $650 per capita.

“Romania is in a difficult position as far as access to medical services is concerned, with an unfair regional distribution of resources, the rural areas and the poor communities living on the margins of society being the most disadvantaged”, the survey points out.

“One explanation resides in the insufficient funding of public health services, coupled with the prolonged crisis of the health insurance fund and the low level of budget spending, between 3-4% of GDP, in sharp contrast with the 8-10% in more developed EU countries.”

In this grim picture of the poverty of the national health system, the Roma stand out in a particularly noticeable way.

Officially, there are some 550,000 ethnic Roma or some 2.6 per cent of Romania’s 21 m population. But many studies and statistic say that real number of Roma people is between 1-1.5 million.

The situation in Ferentari is especially alarming. Just eight kilometres away from Bucharest’s downtown area, several thousand Roma live there in appalling conditions.

“There’s nothing we can do, my son. That’s how they’re used to livin’. The garbage truck almost never comes this way, but the thing is people ain’t no good. It’s not like when Ceausescu was alive and people were more careful ‘cause they was afraid”, says an old woman, recalling the days of the communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, while selling roasted sunflower seeds.

One of the biggest problems in the area is that people do not have stable jobs, which prevents them from getting health insurance.

“If you have no employment record or some certificate from your employer that you are a taxpayer, you can’t be registered with a family doctor’s practice. This is where the problems start”, says Ioana Constantin, a health adviser in Ferentari.

People would like to have a medical centre in the area. “The nearest one is about 15 bus stops away. They are discouraged by the great distance and the bus fares. In fact, there is one medical centre which is somewhat closer, but that is a private one, so it’s expensive”, Ioana added.

Priority or not?

Yet, the Ministry of Public Health, MSP has no programmes for the Roma communities. That is because of the idea that disease and suffering should have nothing to do with an individual’s ethnic background.

Since 2001, the year when Romania adopted the EU regulations that ban patients’ classification according to ethnicity, there has virtually been no official data containing an inventory of the Roma’s health problems.

Surprisingly enough, officials often say that Roma are the main target group of the government strategies to promote health and fight poverty. However, there is not much that the health minister can do for the people in Ferentari.

“Currently, that area is not a priority of the MSP. Things might change only if the Bucharest Authority for Public Health, ASPB or some NGO identifies specific problems and comes up with a concrete plan to improve the conditions in that area”, says dr. Hanna Dobronauteanu, former counsellor for Roma issues within the Public Health Ministry.

For now, in Ferentari – in the absence of a substantial, long-term effort on the part of the government – only individual NGO initiatives or projects appear to be yielding results, but these are limited in scope.

Hundreds of thousands of euros have been spent on all kinds of programmes, including fighting TB, providing sex education and family planning, breast cancer screening and other schemes. But all that is, as yet, producing few visible results.

“The programmes carried out so far should be only the preface to a large, coherent campaign designed to address the complex health problems of the Roma population in Ferentari”, says Alina Constantinescu, a social worker for the American organization, Doctors of the World.

“Of course they have been very useful, but they have not always been focused on the most stringent needs.


"Besides, the real causes are poverty, unemployment or lack of education”, Constantinescu says and warns: “Furthermore, as Romania has become an EU member state, the US and other western countries have stopped funding many projects in this country for Romania is now deemed capable of solving its problems alone. Well, I kind of doubt that.”


Planning is what we do best!

When targeting Roma issue, the health ministry supports only the health advisers, who are members of the local community, trained to facilitate communication between people and their doctors. Thus, the 500 health advisers now working throughout Romania – who are all women – must enter people’s homes, find out their problems and try to put in place solutions to them.

In fact, what they do is not only to take care of health-related problems, but also to help the Roma get their ID cards or birth certificates or to report their social problems to the authorities.

Even if, with the assistance of health advisers, significant steps have been taken, the problems are far from being solved. First, they are employed only for a limited period of time, usually one year, and then their fixed-term labour contracts are extended for another year, which makes their jobs insecure.

Then their salary – paid by the Authority for Public Health – is far from motivating, as it amounts to the equivalent of just €125 a month at the most.

Furthermore, there are problems related to the Roma’s access to public health services. While health ministry officials say it has improved, local NGOs are of a different opinion.

Daniel Radulescu, the health project coordinator of the Roma organization Romani Criss, says: “Even if there are more people registered with the doctor’s office now, this does not mean that they have equal access to the services provided by that doctor. Very often, Roma people inform us that some doctors display racist attitudes”.

Even the State Secretary at Health Ministry, Ervin Zoltan Szekely, confirms the existence of such cases. “We have recently been informed about a Roma lady who had filed a complaint for not having received adequate medical assistance which resulted in serious problems when she gave birth to her child. The officials assessed the situation and imposed disciplinary sanctions on that doctor not for having committed an act of discrimination, but because he had failed to provide proper medical assistance. So he was not sanctioned for discrimination because that is difficult to prove.”

Romani Criss also monitors instances of segregation in hospitals - which is illegal in Romania – but admits that such cases are equally difficult to prove. “Discrimination and segregation have not been our priority so far. However, we are planning to include these phenomena in the scope of our investigation work”, Szekely says.

Many Roma hope such promises may mark a shift in official attitudes to improving health care provisions for them.


Marian Chiriac is BIRN Romania country director and Daniel Ganga is a freelance journalist of Roma origin. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.

BBC News: Stretcher push pays for ambulance

A sponsored stretcher push through Bristol raised £800 towards the cost of sending a refurbished ambulance to an industrial area of Romania.

The charity 'Ambulance 4 Romania' has bought an old vehicle from Great Western Ambulance (GWA) to send to villagers in the Baru area.

"A car with a mattress in the back currently serves as the ambulance," said GWA's Richard Clark.

"There is a real need for a proper ambulance in this area," he added.

Public thanked

Mr Clark helped set up the charity with Elaine Webb, a colleague from St John Ambulance.

He said: "The authorities have told the villagers that because the vehicle that is now being used is not suitable they will have to stop running their ambulance service unless a replacement can be found but they have no funds to buy one.

"This area depends on the ceramics industry - the problem is there is a lot of outdated equipment and workers are often exposed to compression type injuries and serious burns."

"The first ambulances we took to Romania 10 years ago are still in use today and I am told they are still the best they have; the drivers treat them as if they are their own," said Mr Clark.

So far Richard and his friends in the charity have raised nearly £2,500 towards the total cost of £4,000 of sending a refurbished ambulance.

"The public were very generous and I would like to thank them for all their support," said Richard Clark.

A trip is planned for 30 November 2007 to take the refurbished ambulance over to Romania.

Delaware Tech helps

Source: capegazette.com

Delaware Tech has recently concluded a successful project management training program in Romania to assist Romania’s National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority with mitigating the threat of avian influenza in the agricultural sector. The program resulted in the training of 75 veterinarians, supervisors and officials from 45 counties and local veterinary facilities as well as ANSVSA’s executive management.

The authority (ANSVSA) is a government agency with a mission similar to those of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the veterinary pharmaceutical and food safety responsibilities of the Food and Drug Administration.
Delaware Tech’s training program, led by Dr. Charles Poplos, helped project managers learn through their own real-world projects for planning and response to animal diseases. Poplos also introduced participants to the Delaware Model, a unique collaboration of Delaware’s poultry industry, institutions of higher education and government working to mitigate the threat of disease.

All participants who completed the course received an official Certificate of Attendance from Delaware Tech. Those participants who completed additional requirements also earned a Certificate of Associate in Project Management and an official Delaware Tech transcript. The graduation ceremony, held in Romania on July 11, was attended by officials from Delaware Tech, ANSVSA, USAID and the World Bank.

According to Carla Stone, who directs Delaware Tech’s international technical assistance programs, “This program has fundamentally changed how Romania will plan for and implement projects for disease prevention and response. The training has enabled ANSVSA veterinarians and administrators to establish a single set of standards of response and has improved communication among veterinarians and other personnel across the country.

We are proud to be part of a project that will help Romania be better prepared to prevent and respond to any type of animal disease, food safety, or environmental issue – not just avian influenza.” To commemorate this project and to honor the close ties formed between Delaware Tech and Romania, the College will host a concert by two young Romanian pianists on Thursday, Oct. 25 in Georgetown. The pianists also will visit special arts magnet schools in Delaware and have the opportunity to interact with their contemporaries.

This project is the fourth time Delaware Tech has helped countries in Eastern Europe respond to avian influenza or severe environmental concerns. From 2003 to 2005, the college aided Bulgaria in establishing a wastewater training center similar to the college’s Environmental Training Center in Georgetown. In 2005-2006, Delaware Tech led a World Learning/USAID project for Kosovo to increase poultry industry capacity and improve influenza policies. In Croatia, Delaware Tech developed and implemented graduate level courses in environmental project management training at the University of Zagreb.

This year’s project management training in Romania is part of a larger USDA grant to the Delmarva International Poultry Partnership, led by the University of Delaware and Delaware Tech, to provide training and technical assistance to Romania for controlling avian influenza. The grant, which ended in August, also funded several other Delaware Tech projects including the development of a new training laboratory for the University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in Bucharest.

The new laboratory was unveiled in a ribbon-cutting ceremony later in August.

Largest recovery medicine center opens in Romania

The largest recovery medicine center in Romania and one of the largest in Eastern Europe was opened on Monday in the capital city of Bucharest.

The center will offer medical assistance to people who either were born physically or mentally impaired or become so later in life.

Besides the medical assistance to disabled persons, the center will also test the work capacity of such people, establish infirmity degrees and recovery as well as functional re-education programs for patients suffering from post-traumatic sequels of their bone, muscular or nervous systems.

Also available will be specialist acupuncture, laser and homeopathic services, tomography investigations, allopathic care for patients suffering from various medical conditions, including sugar diabetes, conditions of the cardiovascular system, hypertension, and high-blood cholesterol.

Patients to be hospitalized at the center will qualify for free care, based on diagnostics established by doctors, but there will also be a privately run department, which will provide care for money.

Construction on the center started in 1990, on funds raised by an association under a social campaign project mainly backed by the German Rumaniahilfe Association of Hamburg. The project was carried out under a public-private partnership that also included the Bucharest Mayoralty.

Source: Xinhua

Danone yoghurts declared safe in Romania

31st August 2007 By Leah Vyse
Food Business Review Online

Yoghurts produced by Groupe Danone's Romanian unit have been declared safe to eat, after they were suspected of being contaminated with dioxin.

The yoghurts were declared safe by the Romanian public health authority the ANSVSA, after tests revealed the dioxin levels in the yoghurts were lower than the safe levels permitted in the EU. The French dairy giant recalled batches of its fruit yoghurt containing thickening agent guar gum amid fears they were contaminated with dioxin. The recall came as a result of an investigation of dioxin contamination in the food thickening agent carried out by the European Union's food safety institutions across a number of member states. Exposure to high levels of dioxin in humans has been linked to cancer, damage to the immune system and diabetes.

Romania Danone yogurt safe for human consumption

BUCHAREST, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Tests on yogurt made by the Romanian unit of French food giant Danone showed the product is safe for human consumption and was not contaminated with dioxin, food safety authorities said on Wednesday.

Last week, Danone recalled some batches of fruit yogurt suspected of dioxin contamination pending laboratory tests to be performed in Hungary. The move followed investigations of dioxin contamination in guar gum -- an additive used as thickener in food products -- by the European Union's food safety institutions in several member states. "Lab bulletins revealed that dioxin levels are below limits allowed by the EU regulations," the Romanian ANSV watchdog said in a statement. ANSV, which said it will lift the seizure order later in the day, said tests revealed that dioxin levels were 13 to 37 folds lower than the allowed ceiling.

Romania Danone unit recalls yoghurt in dioxin scare

BUCHAREST, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The Romanian unit of French food giant Danone (DANO.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) has recalled some batches of fruit yoghurt suspected of dioxin contamination, the company said on Wednesday.

The move followed investigations of dioxin contamination in guar gum -- an additive used as thickener in food products -- by the European Union's food safety institutions in several member states.

"The quantity of product identified as in connection with the European alert was traced and is now secured, under the control of sanitary-veterinary and food safety authorities," Danone said in a statement.

It said all its products on the market conformed with the regulations and did not present any risk to consumers.

Yogurt maker Danone pulls fruit yogurt off shelves in Romania due to contamination scare

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - A subsidiary of French yogurt maker Groupe Danone SA has pulled fruit yogurts off the shelves in Romania after suspicions that they were contaminated with dioxin, the company said Wednesday.

Food health authorities carried out checks on the Danone product Aug. 17 and the yogurts were impounded in a Danone warehouse, a company statement said. The yogurts contained guar gum, a thickening agent and stabilizer which may have been contaminated with dioxin, the statement said. The yogurts had been manufactured recently and expired on Sept 11. Samples were sent for checks at a food laboratory in Budapest, Hungary.

The statement said that results from the checks at the laboratory in Budapest would be available next week. Dioxin can be toxic and is a probable carcinogen.

Company officials insisted there was no danger to consumers.

«We are talking about a small quantity compared to our total produce,» said Milena Nedelecu, a company official by telephone. «There is not a single carton of yogurt of ours on the market that is suspicious. They were all withdrawn immediately,» she told The Associated Press.

Daily Evenimentul Zilei reported that Danone sour cherry and forest fruit yogurts had been withdrawn Tuesday from supermarkets in the southern city of Pitesti. Danone is one of the most popular brands of yogurt and sour cream in Romania, a country of 22 million.