‘Marie Curie ‘ Hospital for Children to extend intensive care facilities for babies

A new facility will be built at Marie Curie hospital in Bucharest for babies needing intensive care

Roxana Vasile, 06.01.2021, 11:29

The Marie Sklodowska Curie Emergency Childrens Hospital in Bucharest hosts the most modern intensive care unit for newborns in Romania and in South-Eastern Europe. The 27 beds are insufficient though for the premature babies or for those who suffer from various diseases, from all over the country, who need medical care at the highest standards. In the absence of a satisfactory number of beds, many of the babies with problems lose their lives before they even reach the care of specialists. More precisely, dozens of them die annually, waiting, on a list, for the release of a place in the neonatology intensive care unit.

This is the reason why the head of the department, doctor Cătălin Cîrstoveanu, dubbed childrens angel, and the president of the Childrens Heart Association, Alexandru Popa, make considerable efforts to extend the intensive care area. Basically, Dr. Cirstoveanu fights on his own for all babies with health issues to get a hospital bed:

“Romania needs at least 100 beds, in order to no longer face these situations that have been dragging for years, which no one has ever wanted to solve in a systematic, organised and orderly manner. Thats why we built a section seven years ago: from 8 to 10 beds, we went to 27 beds. The community has invested: companies, individuals, foundations, associations. We did it in Constanța (southeast) in the same way, now we repeat this here and the reason why we repeat it here again is because it is a multidisciplinary hospital which solves much more than it is solved in much of the rest of the country, and the pressure is enormous in relation to the cases that must be dealt with here. We wanted to be inspired by the best and to put into practice well-known, functional, efficient and super-performing models. For example, we, almost the entire department, went to the United States, where our teacher and friend Edward Bell in Iowa, with a lot of generosity, showed us, guided us, taught us, including how to avoid the mistakes theyd made there, so we took a ʹshortcutʹ and avoided many problems that Romania, in this area, does not understand or is barely trying to understand.”

In London, dr. Cîrstoveanu told us, specialists from Ferrari were asked to modernise the transfer of children from the operating room to the intensive care unit. If those people can change in four seconds the four wheels of a racing car, why not find solutions for transporting into the intensive care unit, fast and safely, of a recently operated new born?In other large hospitals of the world it was decided to place an MRI or even an operating room in the middle of the resuscitation department.

Or, looking around and seeing what are the trends in the field, doctor Cîrstoveanu wants them replicated in Romania, at Marie Curieʹ. The plans are big, matching the importance of the mission. A new hospital will be built with 20 new places, in individual rooms, in Intensive Care, a neonatal operating room and better accommodation for parents and medical staff wil be provided. In short, everything that is better and newer for Romanian children, says Dr. Cătălin Cîrstoveanu:

Its a much bigger building than we have. We thought of dreaming big and scheduling bold things, not for a year, not for three, but for ten – twenty – thirty. We want to be like the best! Then we have another serious problem! We have seen that doctors and nurses do not have enough training to work with their hands, not just their heads. They lack dexterity, proper use of their hands, and I said we needed to do a training centre especially since we had a program with our colleagues in the hospital, we went all over the country and we saw that there were big problems and I said that people must learn on plastics, on mannequins as similar as possible to the human body, the body of a small child, in order to learn to perform procedures on children in complete safety. Thats why we will also include a training centre”

The entire Marie Curieʹ project, which could become operational in a maximum of two years, costs around 5 million euros. An essential help in raising the necessary funds is the Childrens Heart Association, which, among other things, has made it possible that some children with severe heart defects born in Romania can be operated on in Bucharest by creating a department of neonatal cardiac surgery. The president of the Association, Alexandru Popa told us about the ways in which those who wish can help, now, to expand the intensive care unit:

“People can send a text message to 8844 with the text BINE (well). Thus one subscribes, practically, to a monthly donation of 2 euros. Or they can sponsor us. Or they can make donations to our accounts which can be easily found on the inimacopiilor.ro website; there is also an online payment module where secure transactions can be made. We also have friends who donate their birthdays or organise events on galantom.ro and raise money for this project or for other projects we run. Unfortunately, we are asking for money. But this money is not for us. They are for the children we help and, unfortunately, all things cost and, if we want quality things, we have to pay quite a lot of money. In general, we pay less than the Romanian state pays, because we negotiate well and, on the other hand, because the equipment suppliers sympathise with us and are happy, very often, to be part of a humanitarian project in which they see that things are really happening and the children who, in other places, have no chance, are saved in the wards we have set up for them. So thats what were asking for when we ask for money.”

Currently, every year, 300 newborns with serious illnesses from all over the country go through the Intensive Care Unit of Marie Curieʹ. After the future expansion, another 200 will have the chance to benefit from top medical care. With our help! (M. Ignatescu)