Since writing yesterday I have sat on a silk upholstered chair in the US Ambassador's office and a rubber, steel-framed chair swatting flies in the Director's office of the rural mental hospital Poiana Mare. The disparity is gripping me to the point that I am having difficulty finding the words to set the scene so you can best understand the sights, sounds and smells of the past 36 hours. The meeting with the Ambassador was unremarkable with the exception of my sheer anxiety and nervousness in a 10 second span that lifted almost as soon as it came. What was far more remarkable was later sharing a pizza with a psychiatrist who was born and raised in a rural children's hospital during the regime era. He told stories of disabled children being naked on plastic sheeting and hosed down 20 at a time like farm animals. Sadly, the image is not too far from the reality of treatment in Romania today.Today, we traveled three hours outside of Bucharest in a minibus. (Mom, I'm glad you weren't with us. The rough pot holes, dirt and steep curves were not for the faint of heart. It made anything in France look state-of-the-art.) Along the route were gypsy families like those pictured and small villages that still had community wells. All farming was still done by hand and the people with horses were considered lucky.
Our trip took us to a small regional newspaper in Craiova where we sat with a group of reporters and heard their stories about uncovering the Poiana Mare mental hospital violations. In 2003-2004, 125 patients (out of about 310 census) died of hypothermia and malnutrition. All the details were filled for me today, including finding out that the employees stole the food from the patients. We then took a one hour jaunt outside of Craiova on an almost impassable road - so rough we almost lost fillings and shook the kidneys out of our bodies. Destination - the end of the earth - Poiana Mare mental hospital. Carrying a letter from the Minister of Health allowing us on the premises, we were granted entrance and greeted by a station of the cross at the gate. The paradox was astounding to me, a religious symbol in front of a place that looked more like a concentration camp than a hospital. Old army barracks turned, TB ward in the 50's and then mental hospital in the 60's.
We discovered that before 89' Poiana Mare was the place the regime sent any dissidents -- mental illness or not. No wonder the human atrocities took place -- it is at the edge of the earth (purposely) so no monitoring can take place and the patients are removed from any human contact.
The interview and tour with the grotesquely potbellied, incompetent director, who worked at Poiana Mare during the regime and was "appointed" to come back, was staged and scripted. Nothing computed and his stories were full of holes that didn't add up. We were allowed on only "certain" wards that had been freshly mopped to the point we almost fell. The most difficult part that requires some grappling is that many of the same employees, and administrators are still in place - despite the deaths. There is still no accountability in Romania, even with the press uncovering the full story. The reporter that traveled with us, was full of courage and confronted the Director about changes since she was last there. Although everything was in Romanian, I felt the tension rise.
It is with this courage, the courage of the press, that change is possible. I am honored to be a witness to such profound passion and spirit.
I'm exhausted tonight -- it is 11:53 -- and I am now shaking the road dust off of my feet. A fourteen hour day on the road to the ends of the earth. I have nothing for which to complain, as I watched men and women today in striped/stamped pajamas with no hope to exit the gates of the institution that controls their destiny. I can only hope that somehow my voice can reach the ears of those that can change their destiny.
