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Romania

Socialized Medical Care after Communism



On the morning of September 4, 2011, we landed at Otopeni Airport in Bucharest. I expected the same tired out communist era one-building terminal. I was pleasantly greeted by a brand new, shiny international terminal, built on the model of the German airport in Frankfurt.
The few bathrooms were still smelly with rough toilet tissue that I remembered, some of which still had wood splinters visible in the paper. The unfriendly border guards checked our passports but the scrutiny was brief and we were allowed into the country without a visa! On the other side awaited my two cousins, our family welcoming committee. The air-conditioned atmosphere on the arrival side gave way to stifling heat on the receiving side, as few Romanians can afford to have, cared to have, or use air conditioning. It was 91 degrees and the humidity quite high. We hugged, kissed, and headed for the car rental office, a novelty since I last visited, twenty-five years ago. For $35 a day, we rented a compact class A Mercedes with an engine that purred like a happy cat. I found out soon enough how expensive Diesel was, almost $10 per gallon, thanks to the heavy European Union taxes and Agenda 21 policy that discourages people to drive their own vehicles and encourages the use of bikes, buses, trains, or walking.

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Romanians, who have liberated themselves from communism in 1990, are not going to accept willingly the tenets of Agenda 21. The population will likely be forced or duped into United Nations’ control of the population, land use, resources, education, economy in general, and abolishing private property. We had to be extra careful in villages since bikes were everywhere, goats, cows, and wagons with car tires, pulled by horses. It was anachronistic to see our shiny Mercedes next to goats, cows, and wagons on an asphalted road. Cars of all makes and sizes were abundant. Parking was very scarce. Infrastructure had not adapted fast enough to the explosion of economic growth, the fastest in the European Union. People parked on sidewalks everywhere. No police in his right mind gave anybody a ticket. In fact, I noticed with glee the scarcity of police, replaced by friendly and rotund rent-a-cops. Romanians were thin under communism, a sign of poor nutrition. Telling someone that he/she was fat, was actually a compliment because it meant that he/she had plenty to eat. The growing girth of people around us gave an indication that food was plentiful now. Gone were the days when lines for food were winding around blocks. Supermarkets like Kaufland sprung up everywhere. Traffic police was evident here and there and we escaped a few times being stopped until the 3 a.m. drive to the airport on our return trip home when a young and polite, English speaking cop informed us that the left head light was out and we needed to replace it. He let us go with a warning since the car was rented. Gone were the rudeness, threats, and the arrest that would have occurred 25 years ago, had we been stopped. We drove directly to the hospital were my uncle had been recuperating since his July brain surgery to remove a hemangioma. I did not know what to expect. I was taking in the landscape of Bucharest as we drove by, a very busy and bustling metropolis by any European standards. Stray dogs ("maidanezi") littered the hospital courtyard and the entrance steps, begging for food. The hospital was being repaired and modernized and we had to dodge construction all around us. My cousin bribed the guard 5 Euros so that we could go in. Visiting hours were seldom correctly enforced. The guard supplemented his salary with bribes. This was definitely an ugly remnant of communism, which functioned on theft, bribery, and barter. He objected vociferously to my taking a photograph of the hospital entrance as if state secrets were housed therein. We climbed the stairs to the third floor since the elevator was being repaired, a tired story we used to hear under communism all the time. The more likely explanation was that they were saving on the electric bill. This begged the question, how did they transport patients in and out of the hospital? The interior of the hospital looked more like a hostel with family members caring for the sick and milling about. No nurses or doctors were visible anywhere and it was 11 a.m. We found the room with two beds, one for my uncle and one for his wife who had been caring for him around the clock for the past two months. She looked tired and haggard and I asked her why she does not go home for a day or two to rest. She said, she could not leave him - nobody would treat him and might kill him through neglect. Hospitals and doctors receive bonuses when beds are emptied early and patients are not "re-admitted" permanently. This brought to my mind the provision in Obama care for death panels. My uncle would certainly have qualified for Death Panels since he is 70. Uncle John was lucky that he had a first-class surgeon who saved his life. Under communism, brain surgery was totally out of the question. He owes his life, however, in equal portion to his wife who made sure that he was treated and cared for afterwards. It was strange to see an obviously non-sterile hospital room that looked more like a hotel. It was very hot in the room, no A/C and the windows were shut. The bathroom was down the hall. John was barely able to walk with a cane and his wife's help. I wonder how she managed when he was entirely bed-ridden. The bathroom suite for the entire floor had a large sink in which an elderly patient was doing her laundry by hand. A dirty bathtub in the corner looked like it had not been used for years. A second room in this bathroom suite was the janitor's closet with a mop and bucket. A third room was the actual commode with a very large wide-open window, making the commode visible from all the above floors. There was no toilet paper in sight and no soap or paper towels to wash and dry your hands. The new and improved medical system still required that each patient brought his/her own towels, toilet paper, linens, pillows and all necessities just like under the old communist system. I was shocked how little progress socialized medicine has made in this regard. Socialized healthcare is free for some, compensated at 50% of cost for others, particularly when prescriptions are concerned. Doctors are still paid a nominal salary decided by the government and are required to practice in urban or rural areas that the government deems necessary. Dental care is still out of reach as I saw many young, toothless people. The linoleum floors were dusty and dirty, a patina of respectable dirt, obviously had not been cleaned in a while. How could I explain to my relatives what a hospital looks like in the U.S., the sterile environment, the care, the superior facilities, and the first class medical training? Another relative, who had pleurisy that required daily antibiotic shots, was hospitalized in an infectious disease hospital for the duration of the shots. Apparently, it was cheaper to keep him on a ward than to pay for the services of a nurse to give him the shots at home. Nurses, as well as doctors, were in chronic shortage. Who wants to go to nursing or medical school for six to eight years and receive the same salary as a person with a high school diploma who performs an unqualified job? Several days later, I received a call from my aunt, uncle John's doctors wanted to have their pictures taken with me since they have heard that I am an author in the U.S. I politely declined. Things have changed but not so much, the socialized medicine and the old, tired mentality still linger. I was looking pensively at this hospital in Bucharest, one of the best in the country. What do the less famous and more rural hospitals looks like? Is this our not so distant future when Obama care kicks in fully? Why are Americans willing to trade their exceptional medical care for this sub-standard care? Is it because a charismatic man with no world experience told them that America needs "fundamental change" in the phony "hope" that everyone will be equally miserable and poor, beholden to an all-knowing corrupt government?

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Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh -- Bio and Archives

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, Ileana Writes is a freelance writer, author, radio commentator, and speaker. Her books, “Echoes of Communism”, “Liberty on Life Support” and “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy,” “Communism 2.0: 25 Years Later” are available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle.


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