5 years ago, in June 2018, Asociația Dăruieste Viață, founded by Carmen Uscatu and Oana Georgiou, started an incredible project – starting from scratch, with donations and sponsors, the first hospital for children with cancer in Romania. After 5 years, the hospital is standing, the works have been completed, and now the medical institution is in the reception stage.

“Our biggest project started as a joke: what if we can’t build a hospital?” admits Carmen Uscatu, president and co-founder of the Donate Life association.

After receiving all necessary approvals in the admission process, the hospital will be fully transferred to the Romanian state, and the pediatric oncology department and part of the departments of the old Marie Curie hospital will move to the new building.

“It’s been almost 5 years since we started #NoiFacemUnSpital. Times have been tough, I’ve learned a lot over the years so we can make decisions, I’ve spent nights staring at the ceiling from the immense pressure I’ve felt. However, I kept thinking that when we were done, I would feel a great release and, above all, great, great joy. And I’m almost done, but I don’t feel any release or great joy, but… maybe they will come someday. There are really cool moments when I look at what I’ve done and how this project has turned out through the eyes of others, and then I really understand (for a short time, it’s true) how privileged I am and how privileged the Daruyest way of the team is to be a part of this huge project”, – says Oana Georgiou, vice president of the “Gift Life” association.

Currently, the construction of the hospital has been completed, and part of the equipment has also been purchased. Now the “Gift Life” Association is calling on Romanians to donate to fully equip the hospital (details here).

At what stage of construction of the hospital by the Donate Life Association:

• The hospital is in the reception stage, after the “Gift Life” Association has completed the construction work and made all the steps to the authorities so that the hospital receives all the necessary permits to operate.

• In the meantime, the Donate Life Association is working with the management of the Marie Curie Hospital on the actual relocation and relocation plan (equipment inventory, purchase of new equipment, etc.).

• Work is also ongoing on a pilot project proposed by the “Gift Life” Association of the Ministry of Health regarding the approbation of a new management method in the children’s radiation therapy department of the new hospital.

“We are rebuilding the Marie Curie Hospital to offer all children with serious illnesses the same treatment prices as in Western Europe,” said the message of the “Gift Life” Association.

What will the new hospital bring:

• The first section of radiation therapy for children

• Oncology department

• Department of hemato-oncology

• Operator’s block for 5 operating rooms

• Individual intensive care wards with clean hands access.

• Premises for educational and recreational events

• Beds for parents in rooms where children are received

The hospital will be handed over to the Romanian state: “When he comes to this hospital, we don’t want the patient to feel the way we know we feel in a state hospital”

After the completion of the construction, the hospital for children with cancer, built by the “Donations for Life” Association, will be handed over to the Romanian state.

But what can the “Gift Life” Association do to make this hospital different from other public hospitals in Romania? “The hospital belongs to the Romanian state, we want that to be very clear, because it is built on state land and it will be a hospital of the Romanian state. What we want from this project is not only to have beautiful buildings and some spaces that make the patient comfortable, but let’s go further: to have quality medical services, and when he comes to this hospital, the patient should no longer feel like as we know how we feel in a public hospital. therefore we also need the support of the Romanian state. In fact, we need a partnership with the Romanian state, so that here, in this place where the Romanians have put their money and their trust, because it is a hospital built by people, let’s check another way of management: this also means financial management of the hospital, but also management of medical services . We should not be in charge, but we, together with the Romanian state, should find the best ways to change something. Because we Keep saying it, we’ve been doing the same thing for 32 years and we’re still hoping for the best. And if we don’t change anything in the way we manage hospitals, we won’t be better off,” Oana Georgiou, vice president of the Dăruiiste Viață association, recently explained to HotNews.ro.

For this reason, Carmen Uskatu and Oana Georgiou say they will approach the government, the Ministry of Health and probably the parliament with a pilot project, “let’s try here a different way of managing hospitals and working. And now the battle is coming, but we hope that it will not be a battle, but cooperation with the Romanian state.”

The “Gift Life” association offers the authorities a different model of managing a patient in a hospital: “We often talk about the patient at the center of the system, the student at the center of the system, but specifically these things can be done by changing the way the hospital is organized. If hospitals in Romania are organized by departments around the doctor, we want the hospital to be based on centers that are organized around the disease, i.e. the patient. The patient should be virtually the single point around which doctors gather for diagnosis and treatment. Thus, the patient will no longer be a ping-pong ball in the system, going from one office to another and from one examination to another, and the information will never not all in one place to establish the best diagnosis and the best treatment. This center-based hospital organization was not invented by Dăruieste Viață, it is a model that has existed in Europe for more than 20 years,” says Carmen Uscatu, president of the Give Life Association.

What exactly would that mean? “If a child with a brain tumor comes to oncology, makes a diagnosis, operates, then he is not sent to neurosurgery, but is returned back to oncology, where the doctor knows better, and the surgeon and all the doctors who prescribe treatment come to it is in one place and the patient is treated,” explains the founder and president of the Dăruieste Viață Association.

“It helps a lot, the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach promotes collaboration between doctors and helps make the hospital’s resources more efficient. Obviously, this is not possible without the training, without the support that Dăruiiște Viață offers to Marie Curie’s medical staff. “, she adds.

Dăruiiște Viață now hopes to “get permission” from the authorities to make this hospital different: “To give and do good, you have to get permission. And this is what we want to offer to the authorities, in order to get permission, we create another hospital where we see an increase in the quality of medical services, where the patient is really important and where people are saved,” says Carmen Uscatu.