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Tag: establishment

  • Healthcare endeavours in early 19th century Wallachia

    Healthcare endeavours in early 19th century Wallachia


    The first
    hospitals were established on the premises of monasteries or nearby, on the
    Romanian territory. Monasteries were once places were the physical conditions
    were cured together with the psychological or mental ones. In Bucharest, one
    such treatment place was the Panteleimon Hospital settlement. Initially it was
    placed somewhere outside the city, in the commune of Pantelimon. In time, the
    commune grew into one of Bucharest’s eastern districts. Its name and subsequent
    fame were linked to the Saint Panteleimon Monastery, built in the mid-18th
    century. The foundation deed of the hospital settlement is dated 1731. However,
    the construction proper, for the establishment and for the monastery began in
    1735. It was not until 1750 that the works for the two edifices were completed.
    1735 was a year to remember because of the plague epidemic that broke out that
    year. The epidemic severely affected the downtrodden segment of the population,
    as usual treated on the premises of the monasteries. Actually, ruling prince
    Grigore the 2nd Ghica, the founder of the hospital, ruled that the
    new institution should cure the contagious diseases as well. Subsequently, another
    hospital was built. The new establishment was exclusively dedicated to the contagious
    diseases. The Saint Panteleimon Hospital was dedicated to the more general conditions.
    In the 19th century, the hospital had been going through a series of
    changes. One such change was implemented by one of the first physicians
    schooled in the West, Constantin Caracas. At that time, medical doctors trained
    in the West got involved in the development of the public healthcare system in Wallachia.
    But what exactly happened at that time? Mihaela Diana
    Spranceana     pursues a Master’s programme with the University of Bucharest’s
    History Faculty.




    Mihaela
    Diana Spranceana:




    In the
    first half of the 19th century, actually in 1832, ruling prince
    Grigore Ghica the 4th had the old hospital taken down, ruling that new
    rooms be built, for a number of 37 patients. In the following years, the number
    of patients was continually growing. Between 1867 and 1869 the hospital was rebuilt
    from scratch and opened with a spare-bed capacity of 80 beds. Admitted to that hospital
    were both male and female patients suffering from chronic diseases that were
    internal, but also external, sexually transmitted diseases as well as ophthalmological
    conditions. Yearly, around 350 patients were treated, while the number of deaths
    per year ranged from 12 to 15, according to the hospital register and the physician
    Constantin Caracas’s accounts. Who were the hospital’s medical doctors, throughout
    the years? On the staff of Saint Panteleimon Hospital were physicians who were famous
    around the country, and among them we would like to mention the names of Dimitrie
    Caracaș, but also that of his son, Constantin Caracaș. As regards the activity of
    medical doctor Constantin Caracaș, what I can say is that he hailed from a
    family of Greek medical doctors. His father as well as his brother were medical
    doctors, and after completing his studies in Vienna he settled in Bucharest where
    he acquired a certain fame also because he implemented and generalized the
    smallpox vaccine.






    Since it belonged to a monastery, the Saint Panteleimon Hospital
    mainly treated the downtrodden. Yet contagious diseases took their toll on the
    entire population, so it was also in the first half of the 19th
    century that the first vaccination campaigns also began in Bucharest. And, just
    as we have found out, medical doctor Caracas was on the frontline. One of the
    old medical documents that has been preserved to this day is the vaccination
    Regulation of 1875.
    Mihaela Diana Sprânceana:




    Article 1 stipulated that
    vaccination was mandatory for the entire population, while article 2 stipulated
    that any given child was to be vaccinated during the first year of his life,
    save for the diseased or the sickly, for whom vaccination was optional. Revaccination
    was made at the age of 7, and during the smallpox epidemic vaccination became
    mandatory. Article 7 clearly stipulated that the persons who failed to produce a
    document proving they had been successfully vaccinated were denied access to all
    public services. It is exactly what happens today with those green passes
    without which you do not get access to malls or certain institutions unless you
    produce them. During the vaccination operation proper and for the control of the
    operation, physicians will be accompanied by a local police agent in urban
    areas, while in the rural communes they are accompanied by the mayor or one of
    his delegates, just as it happens today in the vaccination centres, where the
    police and the gendarmerie are present. The booster rollout, in the urban areas
    will be administered by the town’s physicians, personally, while for the rural
    communes it will be administered by the county’s board-certified physician or
    one of his delegates, twice a year, on previously-set dates.
    As
    for the Saint Panteleimon Foundation, in 1869 it was rebuilt from scratch, this
    time with a spare-bed capacity of 80 beds. During the inter-war years, the
    number of sections grew, including a surgery section, an internal medicine as
    well as a nervous disease service. In the final years of the communist regime,
    and mostly after the 1977 tremor, the hospital and the church were in an advanced
    state of degradation Towards the late 1980s, the hospital and the monastery alike
    were demolished to make room for a hotel-and-restaurant compound, the so-called
    Swan Compound, Complex Lebada in Romanian.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)

  • Filantropia hospital in Bucharest, past and present

    Filantropia hospital in Bucharest, past and present


    The first medical institution in Bucharest was established by boyar Mihai Cantacuzino in 1704. Its name was the Coltea hospital. A hundred years later, another hospital was established in Bucharest, a modern institution for its times, the Filantropia/Philanthropy hospital. It was mainly tailored for the needy, hence its name, Filantropia. Today, the medical establishment is one of the capital citys landmarks in terms of medical standards. The hospital boasts the oldest maternity and one of the leading obstetrics and gynecology centers. It is also a period, listed edifice. It all started with a physician schooled in the West, who was keen on contributing to the building of a new country. With details on that, here is historian Adrian Majuru:



    “His name was Constantin Caracas, he was of Aromanian origin and was fresh from his studies abroad, returning to a very complicated country, back then known as Wallachia, and which was under Ottoman suzerainty. It al happened somewhere around 1800. And Caracas returned to an almost exclusively oriental city, Bucharest, that is, where the word sosea, road didnt even exist in the urban vocabulary, not to mention medical or healing terms. Nevertheless, for that time we can say a reforming class of boyars existed, and they oftentimes used their fortune as a guarantee, so that a new country project could be implemented, which included a reformed of the healthcare system, in an incipient form. And this minority, through its small-scale projects, fought for a greater final project, namely the modernisation of Romania, they helped Constantin Caracas establish a hospital he named Filantropia, Philanthropy, that is the love of people. He got promoted and was appointed the towns physician in 1804 and initiated the building of the hospital somewhere around 1811 and 1815, it was subsequently restored a little bit since 1816, following the model of the hospitals in Vienna. So from the very beginning it was a pavilion-style hospital with its buildings placed in the midst of a garden, just as it can still be seen today. It was also Caracas who set up a regulations system, a modern one, for the organization and functioning of a hospital, in 1817. As for the building proper of the hospital, it was possible through public subscription beginning 1810, with the project having the support, financially and logistically, of boyar Grigore Baleanu who donated the plot of land but who also offered money and provided construction materials. But he was also helped by Russian general Kutuzov who at that time was administering the Romanian principalities during the Russian-Turkish war.”



    The chosen area for the new hospital lay outside the city as it then was, very close to the citys northern barrier. Subsequently, behind the hospital, on the greenfield there, even a peripheral neighborhood came into being, a slum/mahala, as it was known back then, a place of dubious reputation and with a lowly social status. However, the slum/mahala had its charm, and in time it got developed, yet very few things today speak of its distant past. Save for the Filantropia hospital, obviously. Historian Adrian Majuru:



    “It was basically an uninhabited area at the time when Dumitru Caracas initiated his project. Only a fountain could be found there, built by ruling prince Mavrogheni some two years prior to the building of the hospital, and where, in time, a church was built, also named Mavrogheni. After the hospital was completed, somewhere around 1833, the first leg was built, of the road known as Kiseleff today. Back then it lay on the outskirts of the city, and was designed as an area for promenade or relaxation. The inhabited slum/mahala lay a little bit farther and was known as the Devils Slum/Mahalaua Dracului, revolving around an inn. It was a halting place placed ahead of the entrance to Bucharest where all sorts of merchants put up, who were travelling from the nearby villages to sell their merchandise. They spent the night there, before they entered Bucharest, since in the past, in todays Victory Circus, one of the barriers of the city could be found. There people were checked for their ID, were asked about their time why spent in Bucharest and were handed a stamped certificate so they could sell their stuff in the closest marketplace. That happened before World War One, in a bid to control peoples transit through Bucharest, somehow.”



    When Constatin Caracass project took off, Bucharest had two other hospitals, Coltea and Saint Panteilimon. Here is historian Adrian Majuru once again, this time telling us how the three hospitals operated. Adrian Majuru:



    “The Filantropia hospital is part of the early generation of modern hospital establishments in Bucharest. Since 1832, the hospital was under the administration of the Board of Civil Hospitals/Eforia Spitalelor Civile, a groundbreaking entity at that time, some sort of privately-managed NGO which was functional prior to the Healthcare Ministry in line, which came into being after World War One. Three medical establishments operated under the administration of the Board: the Coltea and Panteleimon hospitals, as well las the Filantropia/Philanthropy hospital, which means the love of men. As for the establishments, they did not include the hospital alone, they also had other kinds of property and plots of land that were donated such as farmland, oilfields and forests. So they had all sorts of property, even in Bucharest, which were capitalized on as they were rented out. So those areas generated hefty revenues, apart from the income generated by the administration of the medical services on offer.”



    The Filantropia Hospital became a maternity hospital in late 19th century. The new building was erected between 1881 and 1883. The architecture of the central pavilion as it is still seen today dates from that time. Additions or changes that were made in time resulted in todays architecture, which is pleasant and easy to recognize by most of Bucharest city dwellers. In 1891, related to the maternity hospital, a school was founded, for specialized nurses. In the 1920s, Filantropia also became a University Clinic. The hospital was deprived of its properties since they were nationalized during the communist regime. Notwithstanding, the hospital continued its medical performance at a high standard to this day.