Ten years ago we watched our television screens in amazement as Laszlo Tokes, a priest of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Romania, preached to his congregation in Timisoara. His faithfulness to the gospel and determination not to succumb to the directions of his bishop, who was a communist lackey, resulted in the 1989 revolution and the downfall of the Ceauceseu regime. Before long our screens were full of dreadful pictures of Romanian orphanages and of the impoverished population who had spawned them.
Many charities moved in to help. Among them was The Hawkesly Christian Romanian Trust (or to use the Romanian abbreviation, ATCH-S) established by an English couple, Steve and Mandy Hughes. Seeing that aid was not enough they settled in Sibiu, a university town in Transylvania graced by beautiful Saxon architecture.
Medico-social and spiritual needs
Steve was an Anglican clergyman and Mandy was a health visitor. Two needs were apparent to them; one medico-social and one spiritual. On the medical side the hospitals were ill-equipped, the status of nurses was very low, and community care was pretty well non-existent. Those with the greatest need received least. Those who were the most able received most. No one received much.
On the spiritual side the population had a number of ethnic groups, each with its own predominant denomination, worshipping in its own language and ministering to the cultural as well as the spiritual needs of its people. There was a need to meet together across the divides of history, race, language, politics and denominations and to be reconciled through Christ with each other.
Two interdependent centres were started, a health initiative in Sibiu and a reconciliation centre with residential facilities and conference rooms in a village 12 km outside Sibiu.
Fact finding visit
In 1997 I was coming up to retirement as a consultant community paediatrician. One of the clergy at my church suggested I help the Hughes. I went on a fact-finding visit. My work had been mainly advisory to the Local Education Authority and to Social Services on children with special needs. I had also been much involved with child protection work. I did not know whether this type of experience could be translated to the Romanian situation.
By the time I arrived in Sibiu in April 1999 Steve had been appointed to the post of Chaplain to the British Embassy in Bucharest. Mandy remained a director of the Trust, keeping a watching- brief from a 6 hour train journey across the Carpathian Mountains.
The work of both centres had been left in the hands of a young enthusiastic team of Romanians who had just welcomed an English health promotion officer working with VSO.
In the ATCH-S offices I found this Chinese proverb framed on the wall:
Nursing links Mandy had established a link with Lancaster University and a number of Romanian nurses are on British nursing courses. A School of Nursing is currently being established in Sibiu by an English nurse tutor from Lancaster University. There are regular visits to the ATCH-S centre from a British health visitor and a group of British family planning nurses have run courses for the staff. Good relationships have been developed with the Sibiu hospital medical staff and the ATCH-S centre is used for parentcraft classes. It is also used by the newly established Romanian Down's syndrome group for whom ATCH-S is running literacy classes with a group of Down's children.
The hospitals in Sibiu are staffed by able doctors and much equipment has been given by Belgian, German and Dutch hospitals. Nevertheless the levels of staffing, equipment and patient care cannot be compared with those prevailing in UK hospitals. There was for instance no adequate equipment for testing the hearing of handicapped children.
Many of the conditions treated are rarely seen in England - for example rickets, congenital syphilis, and ascaris infections, to name but a few. There is ample scope for accident prevention. Parents work in the fields and children are often left unattended. There is no child protection system in Romania. One nurse told me when showing me a one year old with syphilitic anal condylomata that child sexual abuse does not exist in Romania! Other nurses asked for teaching on child protection.
Can anybody help?
One day I was asked to do the clinic at a village some 75 km from Sibiu. Whatever was said about a health service for everyone, the reality was far removed from the theory! We drove in the ATCH-S jeep over the hills on a mud track. The village street was a deeply rutted mud quagmire. The clinic room was primitive; there was only a stethoscope and a very unreliable sphygmanometer. It felt as though the whole village had turned out to see us! We had few drugs; what we had were German and most people could not afford to buy them. Hypertension was a major problem.
I met many very well educated young people but the village schools I visited were extremely impoverished. None of the children in the literacy classes was wearing spectacles. At least two of the pupils had very marked squints and one of these took no part in the lesson at all. Do these children really get hearing and vision tested as in the UK? I doubt it.
Back in the office of ATCH-S in Sibiu I watched the literacy class for the Down's children. Nuti who takes the class is a village girl who is -gentle and kind and who needs some input from someone skilled in teaching children with special needs.
So is there anyone reading this who feels they may he able to help?
Dr Joy Moore is a retired paediatrician who lives in Surrey
Many charities moved in to help. Among them was The Hawkesly Christian Romanian Trust (or to use the Romanian abbreviation, ATCH-S) established by an English couple, Steve and Mandy Hughes. Seeing that aid was not enough they settled in Sibiu, a university town in Transylvania graced by beautiful Saxon architecture.
Medico-social and spiritual needs
Steve was an Anglican clergyman and Mandy was a health visitor. Two needs were apparent to them; one medico-social and one spiritual. On the medical side the hospitals were ill-equipped, the status of nurses was very low, and community care was pretty well non-existent. Those with the greatest need received least. Those who were the most able received most. No one received much.
On the spiritual side the population had a number of ethnic groups, each with its own predominant denomination, worshipping in its own language and ministering to the cultural as well as the spiritual needs of its people. There was a need to meet together across the divides of history, race, language, politics and denominations and to be reconciled through Christ with each other.
Two interdependent centres were started, a health initiative in Sibiu and a reconciliation centre with residential facilities and conference rooms in a village 12 km outside Sibiu.
Fact finding visit
In 1997 I was coming up to retirement as a consultant community paediatrician. One of the clergy at my church suggested I help the Hughes. I went on a fact-finding visit. My work had been mainly advisory to the Local Education Authority and to Social Services on children with special needs. I had also been much involved with child protection work. I did not know whether this type of experience could be translated to the Romanian situation.
By the time I arrived in Sibiu in April 1999 Steve had been appointed to the post of Chaplain to the British Embassy in Bucharest. Mandy remained a director of the Trust, keeping a watching- brief from a 6 hour train journey across the Carpathian Mountains.
The work of both centres had been left in the hands of a young enthusiastic team of Romanians who had just welcomed an English health promotion officer working with VSO.
In the ATCH-S offices I found this Chinese proverb framed on the wall:
- If you are thinking one year ahead sow seed
- If you are thinking 10 years ahead plant a tree
- If you are thinking 100 years ahead educate the people
Nursing links Mandy had established a link with Lancaster University and a number of Romanian nurses are on British nursing courses. A School of Nursing is currently being established in Sibiu by an English nurse tutor from Lancaster University. There are regular visits to the ATCH-S centre from a British health visitor and a group of British family planning nurses have run courses for the staff. Good relationships have been developed with the Sibiu hospital medical staff and the ATCH-S centre is used for parentcraft classes. It is also used by the newly established Romanian Down's syndrome group for whom ATCH-S is running literacy classes with a group of Down's children.
The hospitals in Sibiu are staffed by able doctors and much equipment has been given by Belgian, German and Dutch hospitals. Nevertheless the levels of staffing, equipment and patient care cannot be compared with those prevailing in UK hospitals. There was for instance no adequate equipment for testing the hearing of handicapped children.
Many of the conditions treated are rarely seen in England - for example rickets, congenital syphilis, and ascaris infections, to name but a few. There is ample scope for accident prevention. Parents work in the fields and children are often left unattended. There is no child protection system in Romania. One nurse told me when showing me a one year old with syphilitic anal condylomata that child sexual abuse does not exist in Romania! Other nurses asked for teaching on child protection.
Can anybody help?
One day I was asked to do the clinic at a village some 75 km from Sibiu. Whatever was said about a health service for everyone, the reality was far removed from the theory! We drove in the ATCH-S jeep over the hills on a mud track. The village street was a deeply rutted mud quagmire. The clinic room was primitive; there was only a stethoscope and a very unreliable sphygmanometer. It felt as though the whole village had turned out to see us! We had few drugs; what we had were German and most people could not afford to buy them. Hypertension was a major problem.
I met many very well educated young people but the village schools I visited were extremely impoverished. None of the children in the literacy classes was wearing spectacles. At least two of the pupils had very marked squints and one of these took no part in the lesson at all. Do these children really get hearing and vision tested as in the UK? I doubt it.
Back in the office of ATCH-S in Sibiu I watched the literacy class for the Down's children. Nuti who takes the class is a village girl who is -gentle and kind and who needs some input from someone skilled in teaching children with special needs.
So is there anyone reading this who feels they may he able to help?
Dr Joy Moore is a retired paediatrician who lives in Surrey
