NGO builds modular hospital in Bucharest for Covid-19 patients
Dăruiește Viață Association, the NGO building the first donation-funded hospital in Romania, has started the construction of a modular hospital in the courtyard of the Elias Hospital in Bucharest. It will treat Covid-19 patients.
The hospital is to be completed within four weeks. The Elias Hospital and the Health Ministry will be in charge with the endowment of the hospital and its running.
The hospital is meant to compensate for the reduced capacity of the local health system as the Covid-19 pandemic brings about an exponential growth of cases and the need to treat a high number of patients for a prolonged duration, the NGO explained.
The plan of the hospital was developed together with partners Tesseract, IMSAT and Linde. It will accommodate approximately 50 beds for serious cases.
“Romania has the advantage of being several weeks behind the other states but it will not be able to avoid the peak of the epidemic we now see in Italy and Spain. Then, thousands of cases will invade the hospitals in Romania, already over-crowded and unable to protect the patients because of infections and the lack of medical equipment. It is essential that we use this time to act for the needs of the patients and the doctors,” Carmen Uscatu, one of the founders of Dăruiește Viață, said.
The NGO has already sent protective gear and medical equipment, including three invasive mechanical ventilators, to 16 hospitals in the country, in Timișoara, Craiova, Bucharest, Petroșani, Brașov and Fălticeni.
Dăruiește Viață Association was founded by Oana Gheorghiu and Carmen Uscatu in 2015. The NGO is building the first Pediatric Oncology and Radiotherapy Hospital in Romania, entirely funded from private donations. The hospital is set to open in early 2021 and, so far, more than 300,000 people and over 4,000 companies have donated money for it. Even Metallica donated EUR 250,000 when they came to play a concert in Bucharest in August 2019.
editor@romania-insider.com
