Tirnaveni Hospital

Thanks to the donations of a number of groups and individuals, we were able to provide 110 new mattresses to half of the inmates of the psychiatric section of the hospital at Tirnaveni in central Transylvania. They certainly were needed. When we arrived at the gracious old buildings in late May, 2005, we found the conditions on the wards very bleak to our eyes. Rows of beds, each representing the home of one patient were arranged in otherwise bare rooms with communal bathrooms off to one side of each ward. On the iron bedsteads the mattresses were thin and torn or non-existent. The new mattresses had been ordered from a workshop in Romania, foam pads with brown vinyl covering. The morning they were placed on the beds was a happy day for those people. We had the mattresses stacked in the hallway where we marked them with the initials of the donors.

The patients themselves were enthusiastic about helping with hauling them to the beds. That day the atmosphere was full of hope and energy, a rarity in their world. We wished we could do more for these people and were full of respect for the caregivers. It is difficult to describe the enormity of the need in a hospital like that, where to feed so many is in itself a difficult proposition, let alone obtaining enough medications for treatment. Lacking the necessary drugs, many patients are simply sedated so that they will not harm themselves or their fellow inmates. The donated psychiatric medicines which we had brought with us were thankfully received, but we realized from the bare shelves that they were far from adequate. Our host, Nicolae Sandu Pop, the Administrative Director, has these people plight tearing at his heart every day. He proudly showed us his efforts including recently renovated bathrooms, a room for basket work and other crafts, gardening activities, pigsties, and a basement room for growing large mushrooms that when cooked are like a succulent steak.