Nursing Romania’s Health Care

Many medical professionals in Romania are skilled clinicians, but they often work in outmoded facilities and lack access to current medical information and technology.

Since 1990, the Romanian Assistance Project has sent teams of American medical volunteers to help develop medical-training programs intended to close the gap left by 45 years of Communist rule.

The project began in 1990, when President Bush asked U.S. business leaders to help the newly emerging democracies in Eastern Europe. David A. Jones, chairman of Humana, in Louisville, Ky., and Boone Powell, president of Baylor Health Care Systems, in Dallas, responded by organizing a trip to take donated supplies and equipment to Romanian orphanages and pediatric clinics, where AIDS had become a serious health problem.

As a result of that visit, both organizations agreed to collaborate on a long-term project to help improve medical care in the country. Since then, more than 200 American physicians, nurses, and technicians have spent time volunteering in Romania, and more than 150 of their Romanian counterparts have participated in training programs in Dallas and Louisville.

Here, during a recent team visit, Kathy Bertolone, a pediatric nurse from Louisville, shows Romanian nurses how to give an injection to an infant.