Ovidius Clinical Hospital (OCH), located in Constanța county, opened a EUR 28 million hospital dedicated to cardiology and oncology this spring. The hospital, which also hosts the first Siemens Healthineers reference site in the country, is endowed with top equipment, a factor that helped in the process of recruiting professionals to work there, Dr. Bogdan Pană, development director of Ovidius Clinical Hospital, who was among the attendees at this year’s National Congress of Radiology and Medical Imaging in Craiova, explains.

OCH’s recent investment is consistent with the institution’s planning model based on health needs. With cardiac and oncological illnesses the most prevalent in the country, the newly-opened hospital covers a high need, its development director says.

The hospital recruited medical staff also from abroad, Romanian doctors who decided to return to the country after developing their careers in top institutions in Europe. The available technology and the facilities available in the Constanța unit, which is also the first Siemens Healthineers reference site in the country, weighed significantly in this, the development director says.

Meanwhile, there is still room to grow, according to Adrian Mociu, executive director of OCH, and the company is constantly developing and recruiting.

More on OCH’s recent investment and how it fits the profile of the local and regional market in the Q&A below.

You opened a new addition to the Ovidius Clinical Hospital (OCH) this spring. What motivated the investment?

Dr Bogdan Pană: We opened in April a new OCH Hospital dedicated to cardiology and oncology. It is a new building, connected to the existing one, in which we invested EUR 28 million, building 7,000 sqm. We have there everything covering medical oncology, chemotherapy, palliative services, radiotherapy with Variant equipment, and a cardiology department covering interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, with everything it entails - operating theater, angiography, and so on, an outpatient section and an imaging center equipped with 128-slice CT and 3 Tesla MRI scanners from Siemens, everything working in an integrated manner. This is the investment that opened on April 6, 2023.

We had a planning model based on health needs. If you take a bird’s eye view of Romania, at the health indicators, you can see that it is the last in Europe when it comes to treatable and preventable mortality, meaning that people die, although those illnesses could have either been avoided or treated. If you look at the illnesses that could be avoided or treated, you can see that 80% of them are cardiovascular or cancer.

And we took this evaluation from the national to the regional level and strictly to Constanța [county]. The amplitude of these preventable deaths is high in Romania; it is almost similar to what the Covid-19 deaths were. There are 30,000 per year. So you can see the impact. In Constanța, they amount to 30 – 40% of the deaths. So the need there is very high.

And this is why we developed these services, because of this need. Of course, in order to develop them, we brought in technology from Siemens, which is the world leader in the field. And we brought in doctors both from Constanța and from abroad, and we created this hub.

How did the recruitment process go? Was it easy to find the professionals?

Dr Bogdan Pană: The recruitment part was a separate line of the project. It lasted 15 months since we started until we opened the hospital - construction, furnishing, equipment.

We looked both here and outside the country. It was an extensive recruitment process - not only in Constanța, Romania, but we also looked at the European area.

Generally, in medicine, if you look at what attracts doctors or at their criteria for workplace satisfaction, you can see that technology and the facilities are at the top, above the financial part. This was our offer for the medical community: a new hub, with top technology, where they can practice medicine in very good conditions.

What is the patient profile – geography-wise?

Dr Bogdan Pană: We mainly target the five counties in the southeastern region, but we also have patients from other cities, from outside the region or from abroad. Those coming from abroad are mostly Romanians, living in the diaspora, but we also have many patients who are seafarers, because of the specific and the relation with insurers. They are international workers who need to take care of their health, and they are in the region. About 80% of the patients are local, and 20% from the region.

In this 15-month process, from design to opening the hospital, what were the biggest challenges?

Dr Bogdan Pană: We did the project and the planning two years before these 15 months. For two years, we planned, we studied, calculated, evaluated all options possible, and when we decided to do it, we started and did it expeditiously, in 15 months.

The challenges were of all categories, from lifting the angiography system by crane to the last floor to tearing down walls to fit the equipment in, building again, we had all sorts of challenges. We took several trips abroad, for instance, to talk to the doctors. We took a few trips to Germany for that, for example.

You host the first Siemens Healthineers Reference center in the country. What does the status entail?

Dr Bogdan Pană: We qualified for this status because of the investment we made, because of the abilities and the knowledge of the doctors working with this equipment, and for our willingness to open a training hub for all these new technologies and continuous medical training. We have people coming from all over the country. We had a course for technicians, and they came from all over the country. We had a cardiology masterclass, and they came from the region.

What are the objectives for the hospital? What development areas do you plan to cover?

Dr Bogdan Pană: We want to be part of the solution to reduce this treatable mortality in the southeastern region. This is our main objective. To be able to contribute to this.

We offer free coronarography. We have a contract with the Health Insurance House. All the oncology services are free, including short notice of up to three days. The radiotherapy is free.

[Investment wise] - At this point, because we’ve just opened, in April, the focus is on consolidating the operations.

What are some takeaways from the congress so far?

Dr Bogdan Pană: The congress is a good opportunity to keep up to speed with the technology novelties. And this is the reason we are here alongside our partners, to see this year’s novelties. We’re exploring, there are still novelties to see.

What does OCH look like in numbers? What are your plans recruitment-wise?

Adrian Mociu: At Ovidius Clinical Hospital, we have 154 beds for continuous hospitalization, day hospitalization, surgical and medical specialties.

We operate 4 MRI scanners, 2 CT scanners, one mammogram scanner, two radiology machines, an angiography system – all from Siemens Healthineers – and several echography machines.

After ten years of activity, we have around 600 continuous hospitalization episodes every month, out of which some 350 surgeries in all pathologies and adult specialties, many of them very complex cases.

Our outpatient section has more than 30,000 patients yearly, and the number is growing. We treat more than 200 oncology patients monthly. With the new investment, in just three–four months since opening, we are doing around 150 coronarography procedures per month, of which 25 – 30% are with angioplasty. In the area of radiotherapy, we already treat more than 30 patients monthly.

We are not at capacity yet; it is a very good start, backed up by a well-established setup, with a well-knit medical team. We have managed to bring in medical staff and Romanian doctors, who returned to the country after long periods spent in countries like Germany. For instance, we have two interventional cardiologists who returned after ten–twelve years spent in well-known hospitals in Germany, and we have managed to bring a radiation therapist from the UK – all Romanians, returning to the country after extended stays abroad, where they developed professionally, worked in renowned hospitals and gained a lot of experience. They brought in know-how, and organized our key services in the new project. Besides them, we have doctors from Germany or France who relocated to Romania. We also carried out an intense recruitment policy.

In the hospital, we constantly hold training sessions and programs for our employees so that they keep up with the technological developments and not only. Siemens helps here with the reference center; the Siemens training center opened in our hospital hosts many training programs in the area of imaging, interventional cardiology for imaging equipment operators but also for doctors; in this way we have managed to have a good setup that led us to a good start in the new project, and a growth, that we believe, is a healthy one. There is still room to grow; we are constantly developing, recruiting, and bringing in doctors. We have reached more than 700 employees and collaborators in all professional categories – doctors, nurses, orderlies, kinesiotherapists, but also support, technical, and administrative staff. We will probably reach more than 800 employees. More than 80% work only for us. Our personnel policy is based mainly on building our services and our departments, with dedicated people.