This week will be interesting indeed...

This week, I will be heading to rural northern Romania with my mentor Andra, Iowa’s visiting professor Anne, and one of the Romanian interns Alex. We will be visiting orphanages and a center for institutionalized children in preparation for a course University of Iowa Public Health students will be taking in August. No doubt some of you remember the images of the 20/20 report in the 90s on the state of Romanian orphanages. My family frequently recounts the story of my cousin Daniel begging my aunt and uncle to adopt a Romanian baby after seeing 20/20. Though you may remember images I doubt you know much about the history that lead to these devastating reports. I will not doubt be able to shed more light after this trip; but for now I have done some research and will give you all some information to hopefully put those images and my future blogs into a better context.

As I have mentioned in previous posts Romania was under the communist rule of Nicolae Ceausescu from 1965 until 1989. One of the main goals of the communist regime was to increase the labor force. To do this, many different policies were pushed that lead to too many children with too few caregivers. First of all, no medical information for citizens was allowed from outside the country and the information provided in Romania included nothing on birth control methods. Secondly, people received an increase in wages for each child they had and in addition could be taxed up to 20% of their wages for not having children. This tax was regardless of if you were married or not. Together this increased the birth rate and family size. With the family size increasing there was a need for a caregiver in the home; however, women were essential for and required to be part of the labor force. Combine this with increased maternal death rates and no social system for child care and the burden families were under is monstrous. Together these factors increased the amount of children that were sent to orphanages or institutionalized.

There has been significant change in the past twenty years in the orphanage and institutional structure of Romania. I will reflect more on that after I visit, but it has been and still is a large hill to climb. One of the residual effects of all of this is the increased HIV/AIDs rate in Romania. Under Ceausescu’s reign only thirteen cases were reported to the WHO, but in the early 90s when the real figures began to be reported Romania had the highest number of cases in Central and Eastern Europe. Over half of those cases came from children who had been institutionalized or put in orphanages. The tight unsanitary spaces and shared needles for vitamin and antibiotic injections in the orphanages and institutions contributed greatly to these high numbers.

I will blog when I return from the trip if I don’t have a chance to while I am gone. I anticipate these next few days will prove to be thought-provoking and I will have a large amount to share.

For now ciao,

Kaitlin