Radio România Internațional

Tag: surgery

May 16, 2024

Visit – The Romanian Foreign Minister, Luminiţa Odobescu, received the Hungarian Minister for European Affairs, János Bóka, who is visiting Romania, in the run up to Hungary taking over the six-month presidency of the EU Council, on July 1. The European and international context marked by multiple challenges and the transition period between two European electoral cycles were tackled. The Romanian official emphasized the interest in advancing the decisions regarding the EU enlargement policy in relation to Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, as well as those regarding Romania’s accession to Schengen with land borders too. The Hungarian side reconfirmed its support for the achievement of this objective. Regarding the current state of bilateral relations, the importance of the strategic partnership between Romania and Hungary and the opportunities for sectoral collaboration were mentioned.

Bratislava – The Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is in intensive care, and his health condition is stable. He underwent several hours of surgery after, on Wednesday, he was shot in the chest and abdomen in a city in the center of the country, where he had chaired a government meeting. The suspected attacker was detained by the police. According to the local media, he is a 71-year-old man, a poet and civic activist. The politicians in power say that the attack was politically motivated. Robert Fico is a controversial left-wing politician, accused of pro-Russian sympathies. Returning to power last year, he canceled military support for Ukraine and announced plans to reform public radio and television, contested by street protests. World leaders condemned the attack on the Slovak prime minister, unprecedented in recent European history. Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis said that such extremist acts threaten fundamental European values.

Festival – Craiova (south), is hosting as of today until May 26, the 14^th edition of the International Shakespeare Festival. More than 300 world-class theater performances, concerts, parades, workshops, book launches, installations, VR trips will cover the entire city of Craiova and its surroundings, in conventional spaces, and also in the most original and unexpected places. Shakespeare Village – a British village from 1600, rebuilt from scratch, on the Craiova Hippodrome, will be the venue for dozens of concerts and shows. Famous names from the world of international theater and performance creators can be found in the festival program, including Robert Wilson, Peter Brook, Declan Donnellan, Robert Lepage, Philip Pârr, Jesus Herrera, and Christian Friedel.

Inflation – The National Bank of Romania (BNR) increased the inflation forecast for the end of this year from 4.7% to 4.9% and maintained the one for the end of 2025 at 3.5%, shows the inflation report presented on Wednesday by the governor of the national bank, Mugur Isarescu. According to him, inflation will remain on a downward trajectory, but at a slower pace than expected. In its spring forecast, the European Commission estimates, in the case of Romania, an economic growth of 3.3% and an inflation rate of almost 6%, more than double the European average.

Port – The Romanian Black Sea port of Constanța has increased its operating capacity with two new terminals – one will allow the unloading of wheeled trucks directly from ships and will handle up to 80,000 vehicles per year, and a 5-hectare cargo terminal, will operate oversized equipment for heavy and bulky goods. The new investments developed by a company from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, will contribute to the transformation of the Port of Constanta into a regional hub, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said at the inauguration event. Constanţa is already the largest container port on the Black Sea, and next year another multi-transport platform will be opened following an investment of 50 million Euros.

UNESCO – In Romania, the Peleş and Pelişor castles, the former communist prisons, the “Three Holy Hierarchs” Church in Iași, the “Assumption of the Virgin” Episcopal Church of the Argeș Monastery and the Movile Cave were included on the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list. The Ministry of Culture sent to the World Heritage Center the forms for the objectives that, through their exceptional qualities, have the potential to be recognized at the international level for the importance they have for present and future generations. Romania is also preparing the transnational nomination file – together with Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia – for the Frontiers of the Roman Empire – the Danube Limes, the eastern segment. (LS)

16 May 2024
January 6, 2020 UPDATE

VISITS The president of Romania Klaus Iohannis and PM Ludovic Orban have working visits scheduled for the next few days, including meetings with European officials. The head of state will travel on Tuesday to southern Germany, where he will have talks with the Bavarian PM Markus Soder, head of the Christian-Social Union, a partner in the ruling coalition in Germany, and will attend a meeting of the Bavarian government, where he will give an address. President Iohannis will also take part in the annual meeting of the CSU group in Bundestag, the lower chamber in the German parliament, where he is to present Romanias views on the future of Europe. On Tuesday, PM Ludovic Orban will travel to Brussels, for meetings with the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli.

BUDGET President Klaus Iohannis Monday signed into law the 2020 state budget and social security budget bills, the Presidency announced. On December 23, the Liberal Government took responsibility before Parliament for the budget bills, the first time when this procedure has been used, in order to make sure that the bills are adopted by year-end, as PM Ludovic Orban explained. The state budget relies on a 4.1% economic growth rate, a 3.1% inflation rate and an average exchange rate of 4.75 lei for the euro. The speakers of the 2 chambers of Parliament, both in Opposition, challenged the procedure and referred the issue to the Constitutional Court.

HOSPITAL Human error was the cause of the incident at the Floreasca Hospital in Bucharest, the largest emergency unit in Romania, where a patient died last month after suffering burns during surgery. This is the conclusion of the investigation that resulted in a roughly 6,300 euro fine against the hospital, as well as penalties against the entire surgery team. According to a news release issued by the Healthcare Ministry, the hospital also decided to dismiss Dr. Mircea Beuran as head of surgery, for failure to comply with the management contract. Doctors, nurses and assistants announced on Monday that they will go on strike to protest Dr. Beurans dismissal and that they will only attend to major emergencies. At the end of last month the National Healthcare Quality Management Authority suspended the accreditation of the hospital for failure to report the incident within 24 hours.

EPIPHANY Orthodox and Greek Catholic believers celebrated on Monday the Epiphany or the Baptism of Jesus, when the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ is marked. Waters are blessed on this occasion. The Epiphany is followed, on Tuesday, by St. John the Baptists feast day, which concludes the winter holiday cycle. Old-rite Christians, mostly Russian, Ukrainian and Serb ethnics, are celebrating Christmas on January 7. The separation of Orthodox churches took place in the early 20th Century, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople decided to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.

TENSIONS NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg
has called on Iran to avoid further violence and provocations, at the end of
a special meeting with NATO ambassadors in Brussels. We share concerns
regarding Iran’s missile tests, and are united in condemning Tehran’s support
for various terrorist groups, Stoltenberg also said. Huge crowds in mourning
and shouting Death to the USA accompanied in Tehran on Monday the coffin of General
Qassem Soleimani, the most popular military commander in Iran, killed in Iraq
in a US drone strike. As a result, Iran announced it will no longer be
bound by the international nuclear deal reached in 2015, and which the Trump
administration abandoned in 2018. European countries, still part of the agreement,
said they deeply regretted Iran’s decision to disregard uranium enrichment
restrictions. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with Russia’s
president Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday. Meanwhile, US president Donald
Trump threatened tough sanctions if Iraq expels the US troops from that
country. Trump made this statement after the Iraqi parliament endorsed a
resolution urging the government to work toward the removal of foreign troops
from Iraq. In Bucharest, PM Ludovic Orban said he is monitoring the situation with
concern and attention, and that an escalation of the tensions is not desired.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

6 January 2020
“Help us to help!” Campaign

In Romania there is a private health clinic where doctors provide free of charge surgery for low-income patients. Two years ago, they started an association called “Zetta”, and ever since, a growing number of patients in difficult financial situations have been coming for help here, particularly for plastic surgery and reconstructive microsurgery.

The founder of the association is doctor Dragos Zamfirescu, a plastic and reconstructive surgery specialist with over 20 years of experience and with scores of innovations in the field of surgery, some of them rewarded with gold medals in Brussels. Alongside 10 other physicians, he is part of a team that has saved many people in need.

Although initially the doctors had decided to conduct 50 operations per year free of charge, in 2018 they reached this goal in only 5 months. By the end of the year, they had already performed free surgery in 125 cases. This year was equally successful, with the team doing twice as many operations as they had originally planned.

Dr. Dragos Zamfirescu: “What I like is to operate, not to talk or brag about it. Basically, for one and a half months the clinic only performed pro bono surgery, which I think is something unheard of anywhere in the world. As for myself, one-quarter of my time, that is 3 months a year, I’ve been working for this cause alone. We are a handful of doctors who perform operations that are not possible in any other centres in Romania, and in some cases we are the patients’ last hope. And to turn down a patient only because they can’t afford to cover the costs of surgery in a private clinic is something I’ve never thought acceptable. I founded this association at the suggestion of my accountants, in order to be able to accept donations to cover the costs of these operations which are by no means easy. We looked at the average salary in Romania, at the average monthly spending figures in Romania, and we came up with 2 categories of patients. We have average-income patients who can afford some procedures and who only pay for the materials used for surgery. And we have people with less than 500 euros a month in net wages, who may receive surgery free of charge. Basically, anyone who earns a barely decent amount, not very little, may benefit from our services.”

Andreea Marin is one of the TV celebrities in Romania who got involved in the project and launched a campaign which is a novelty in Romania. Called “Help us to help!”, the campaign aims to raise funds to cover the costs of the materials used in the free of charge operations.

Andreea Marin: “One year ago, the idea of this campaign was born in a conversation I had with Dr. Dragos Zamfirescu, who was my doctor at the time. While I was in his clinic I learned about these people who had operations free of charge, and many of them were rather complicated cases. There were burn victims, people with injuries caused by accidents and who had to have their limbs amputated, there were cancer patients who needed reconstructive surgery, there were children and adults with malformations, really difficult operations that were being done pro bono by these doctors. I asked about it and Dr. Zamfirescu told me that he was trying not to turn down any patients, if possible. But the materials used in surgery cost thousands of euros, the cost for each operation is about 3.5 euros per minute and some operations may take as many as 12 hours, not to mention that a patient may require successive reconstructive operations over a period of time, in order to get to the desired state. So these doctors were trying to cover these costs from their own incomes and make sure the patients did not have to pay for anything. This is how this campaign started. Today, there are thousands of Romanians, including Romanian nationals who live abroad, who make donations to this association.”

Last autumn, Zetta Association organized the second edition of the “Zetta Help us to help” charity gala, an event that rewards and encourages social responsibility and which its initiators would like to turn into a tradition in Romania. This is where we met Magda Coman, the initiator of a movement called “Atypical Beauty”:

Magda Coman: “I have been in this wheelchair since 2005. It was an unfortunate accident, but I prefer to think of this as my destiny and I think that maybe this way I can be more useful to those who need my help. I am the president of an association called Open Your Heart, which organises the Atypical Beauty event, and I am taking part in this Gala because Zetta Clinic offered free surgery to wheelchair users who are role models for other people. So I came here to thank these wonderful doctors who offer free operations to wheelchair people.”

Monica Radu is 44. She was a literature freshman with the University of Bucharest when she suffered a spine fracture in a car crash. She has been bound to a wheelchair for 22 years. But even so, she moved on with her life, she is a writer and has 3 children. She has recently had surgery for an infected deep wound:

Monica Radu: “I had the chance to find out about the interventions performed at Zetta Clinic and about the programme that Zetta Association is implementing right at a very difficult time for me, health-wise. I was on the verge of sepsis, and when the doctors saw what was happening they brought me for surgery the very next day. I needed a procedure that is specific for plastic surgery, that can only be performed in a plastic surgery clinic, but it is a very expensive type of surgery. So this programme was an extraordinary chance for me, it was great to hear about it exactly when I needed it the most, and it was amazing for me to be accepted in this programme. I am no stranger to hospitals, I’ve been in a wheelchair for 22 years but I’d never heard of anything like this. The sense of confidence and safety and kindness that I found at Zetta Clinic is something I have never encountered before.”

The “Help us to help” campaign will go on in 2020 as well.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

1 January 2020