How She Did What a Country Couldn’t: Oana Gheorghiu’s Story

The whole floor only had one bathroom and there's 30 patients plus their parents. We asked what we can do for these children and our architect said we had to build from scratch. At the beginning we laughed because it sounds like it's not possible. We started to talk with people and people looked at us with trust. So we started to believe and people needed a project to believe in. Our guest today is Oana Gheorghiu, joining us directly from Bucharest, Romania. Oana is the co-founder of the Give Life Association, an NGO that is behind the largest grassroots movement in Romania's history. Through the support of more than 350,000 individual donors and 8,000 companies, they achieved what the state could not, building a brand new hospital for children, entirely funded by donations. To date, their investment in Romania's healthcare system has reached 76 million euros and their work is far from over. In today's episode, we'll get to know Oana, hear how she and her team made the impossible possible and explore why this hospital matters, not just for Romania, but as a model of hope and citizen-driven change for the world. This is Bay Area Innovators and I'm your host, Steve Espas. Oana, welcome to our program. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you for being here. We are connected with you directly to Bucharest, Romania. I know it's later at night over there. We appreciate you doing the interview with us. I want to start with your accomplishment, which is a big one. You know, it's been called the biggest grassroots movement in Romania. It's building a hospital basically from scratch and basically with people's donations. First question is, how did this get started? How did you get the idea to build a hospital? Actually, we didn't have this idea to build a hospital. We started in 2009 from a story of an 18-year-old boy who was dying of leukemia because the Romanian state wasn't able to provide this treatment. We fought for him, me and my good friend, Carmen. After this story, we realized how difficult it is in Romania for families with children with cancer and for families with people with health problems. We decided to try to do something here in Romania to build infrastructure. This project started in 2018, but before that, we tried to renovate the Marie Curie Hospital, the oncological department. That's the existing state-owned hospital, right? Exactly. The existing work for oncological treatment for children with cancer. In this department, we're treating 30 children together with their mothers, and they had access to only one toilet. If you can imagine 60 people having access to only one toilet, so it was incredible for us. This can't be possible in Romania, in a European country. So the whole floor only had one bathroom, and there's 30 patients plus their parents, right? Yes, actually, the department was on half a floor in the hospital, but the hospital was built in the 1980s, and with that technology at that time, with that model of medical infrastructure, and the conditions for treating children with cancer were not good, not at all. We decided to build toilets in every room. This was our first project. We went there with the architect and some engineers to see what we can do. The answer from the specialists was it's not possible because the infrastructure is not adapted to create a toilet in every room, and the spaces are too small. We asked what we can do for these children because it's not possible to let them be treated in these conditions, and our architect said we had built from scratch, something from scratch. At the beginning, we laughed because it sounds like it's not possible, but step by step, we started to sing, we started to talk with people, and people looked at us with trust. So we started to believe. We raised money, and we had a big chance to have with us the biggest TV station in Romania, ProTV, who helped a lot for our fundraising campaigns. So the initial case was a boy who was sick, and then you learn about this case, and that motivated you to start doing this. So then you started raising money. How successful was that? How were you able to raise money, and to what level did that get to be able to start building? It's a big project. It's a huge project. Yeah. We have to talk about the political context because in Romania, in 2000, we started the project, actually, we started to talk about this project in 2016. After that, in 2017, 2018, we had a lot of political problems in Romania, and people needed a project to believe in because they didn't believe in politicians, and all this energy needed something to believe in. And our project started to increase in this context and in this period, and we started to talk about, we are building a hospital, and this became something very important for people because we talked about us, about everyone who donate one euro or 100 euro, they become part of the project, and a lot of well-known people in Romania came with us, ProTV, who contributed a lot to make this project known in the country, and we managed to have more than 350,000 donors, individual donors, and more than 10,000 companies. It was incredible for us, and in this period, we had a lot of political obstacles because at the beginning, the politicians didn't understand what really means this project. They thought it is a project, another NGO who wants to do something. This was our chance because they started to realize what it means, this project, when the project was already too high for being stopped. They tried, but people and press and media had a very strong reaction. In the end, we managed to build the hospital, and now children are treated in this hospital. Can you give us a sense of the size? How big is the building, the hospital? The hospital has nine levels, 12,000 square meters. We built another technical building, 204,000 square meters. Can you tell us what is the approximate donation amount you have received? What is the total cost of the project? The budget of this hospital was 53 million euros, including the building and all equipment. We finished the project with everything that the hospital needed. Because people continued to donate, and we managed to raise more money than we needed for this first project, we started to work on the second part of the project. Marie Curie Hospital in Bucharest is one of the biggest hospitals for children in Romania. Patients come from all over the country, not only from Bucharest. It is a general hospital, an emergency hospital. We decided to build another building in order to move all the other specialties in new infrastructure. Because in this moment, the Marie Curie Hospital is running, we said, in two centuries. A part of the building in the last centuries, and the new infrastructure of these actual standards. And it is frustrating for people, for patients, and for staff too. Every child needs to have the best conditions to be treated in hospital. That's an amazing story. You're turning something sad, something obviously unpleasant, into something that has hope. And 350,000 donors, that's really huge. Now, the land, you got the land from the city, right? From the city of Bucharest, right? Yes, the land actually we built in the yard of Marie Curie Hospital. We signed an agreement. Our engagement was to build the hospital and in the end to donate to the Romanian state. The hospital in this moment is a public hospital, because we donated to the Romanian state. The next project will be the same, because the buildings will be connected to each other. In order to have a good hospital, all the medical circuits and all the infrastructure they need. How did you feel when the building was finished, and you had an opening, and you see the patients going to the new hospitals? How did you feel personally? It was a day very important for us, with a lot of emotion. Everybody from our team was crying that day, because after a lot of work and a lot of obstacles, we did it, and we felt like something very important for us, for all our donors, for children, for their parents, and for Romania too. Because for Romania it was a very important achievement. People said we can, we can do it. In the last 35 years, we were made to believe that we can't build in Romania. We thought that about us, and this project was something that proved we can do it. Why is it specifically so important for you to do this project for Romania and for the kids? At the beginning, it was empathy. If I was in her shoes, how difficult it was for me. For me and Carmen the same, my friend with whom I founded the NGO. So the empathy. But step by step, we realized this project is more than a hospital. It's a lot of hope for Romania. It's a hope for Romania. For children, it's very important. For personal, for medical staff, it's very important. But it's very important for every Romanian that donate or not, because they could see something was built by Romanian people and was important. Tell us about some of the hardships or some of the problems you ran into during the process, and how did you come out? How did you succeed to finish it? Every minister of health that took the position, the power, tried to put some obstacles. I don't know why. The politicians were not very happy with this project because it was like a mirror in their face. They didn't build anything, and an NGO and people did it. And they tried to stop the legislation that permitted us to raise money. They tried to ask some permissions and some paper. They invented rules. They tried to invent rules, but the Romanians were very reactive, and their reaction means a lot for politicians. In the end, we managed to do it. In Romania, we had a lot of problems with the political situation. Unfortunately, the authorities treat us not like partners, and we hope in the future, after these elections, I hope this will change, because we need a partnership between NGOs and Romanian state and authorities. And I think we can change a lot of things in Romania if we manage to have this partnership. Do you think your success goes beyond the borders of Romania? Have you heard or seen other countries that you talk to, or they are looking to give them inspiration to do something similar? Yes, we talk to NGOs from Moldavia, from Bulgaria, Holland, but with Holland, we try to learn from them, because they do a lot of things. But our project was remarked by Metallica, the band, went to Romania in 2019 and donated for our project 2,500 euros. Wow. Now, it's been pretty much, like you said, 35 years since Romania gave up communism and had the revolution. Please tell us about the changes that happened in these 35 years, and if you think this project would have been possible during the communist times. No, during the communist times, this kind of project was impossible, because I lived in communism, all my teenagers were in this time, and it was very difficult for us. And in December 1989, when the revolution came, we were a communist country with a dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu. The revolution in 1989 made Ceaușescu out. I was a student in the first year, at that point, and I was living all this period, I could say a historical period, because a lot of change was in Romania. Step by step, we learned to live in democracy. The beginning was not easy. Back then, until now, a lot of things changed, and especially the civil society increased a lot and managed to do a lot of things in Romania. So you see an improvement overall? Of course. And our big achievement is to be part of the European Union. Tell us more about the 1989 revolution. There was the most violent change of regime in Eastern Europe in 1989. All of Eastern Europe pretty much changed regimes, but Romania was the most violent. Please tell us about your experience and how you think that changed later the country's direction. Yes, when the revolution began in December 1989, I was in my first year of university, and I experienced these events directly as they happened, and it was very… with a lot of emotion, we lived at that time. And the early 1990s were full of hope for Romanians and full of energy at the same time. And like many young people, I joined the protest against the new government that took the power after Ceausescu fell, because we wanted a real democracy, not just a change of faces. I was there in University Square. I don't know if you know, but in Romania we protested for more than two months in University Square. A lot of students gathered every night to protest against the new leaders. This was in 1990, right? 1990? Yes, in 1990. Especially against Ion Iliescu. Ion Iliescu, after the elections in June 1990, he asked miners from the Ziu Valley to come in Bucharest to clean the streets. This was his message. Actually, he wanted to stop the protest and to clean the streets, how he said. It was very violent. I remember five, six people died. During these events, hundreds of people were injured. So that's a price to pay to make it better, to move towards a real democracy. Yes, but I think these events in 1990 were very important, because they were the beginning of civil society. I remember this made me very interested in the politics, what happened with politicians, what they do for us or they don't do for us. And I think this was the same for many, many people. How did you get doctors to be part of the hospital? Did they come in automatically, or you had to hire them, or how did that work out? Actually, the medical staff moved from the old building in the new one. Of course, now they need more staff, because the department is bigger than before, and it's not easy. Doctors, we have, but it's very difficult with nurses. This is the biggest problem in Romania at that moment. I know the hospital is trying to find five nurses for the oncological department. In Romania, it is a big problem with the medical staff, because a lot of doctors and nurses left the country for working abroad. It's not our task, because the hospital, how I already said, is managed by the Romanian state. It's a public hospital, but we try to help the hospital, and we pay training for staff, even abroad. We try to bring doctors from abroad to make exchanges and to learn some procedures, but from having medical staff, this is the part of the hospital. They do that. I know there's probably thousands, hundreds of thousands of NGOs that try to raise money, and some may be watching our program and want to learn from you. Please tell us one more, tell us again, how were you able to get so many people involved and raise so much capital for this project, and not just from individual donations, but from companies as well? From individual donations, we were helped by ProTV, by the TV station, and we have a very good tool in Romania. People can donate by SMS, by a recurrent SMS, and if they send once an SMS, every month the SMS continues to come until they stop. And for companies, we have in Romania a very good fiscal facility. Companies can split the profit tax between Romanian state, 80%, and NGOs, projects for NGOs, 20%. And this is a very, very good fiscal facility, but we fought almost every year to keep it, because every new government tried to stop, and it's an every year task for NGOs to negotiate with the government and to try to keep it. Oana, thank you so much for your time. Any final thoughts? And what are you going to do next? What's next for you in plan? Next, our project is already communicated for our donors and companies. We continue to raise money for the medical campus, when this is the name for the project. And I don't know, maybe for Romanians from United States to say hello, to say thank you for all them that donated for us, because we have some donors from United States, and to invite the others to donate if they didn't do it. We have a site, it's daruiesteviata.ro. Daruiesteviata in English is give life. They can see on our site all our projects, because we did a lot of projects all around the country, not only in Bucharest. This is the biggest project that we did. And thank you for having me and for talking about our project. Thank you so much for joining us, and thank you for making, like we talk about, making the impossible possible with your project. Thank you. Thank you for watching another episode of Bay Area Innovators. If you enjoyed this episode, and you know someone who should be on our show, please send us an email at sfbay.epochtimes.com. We would love to hear from you. Thank you, and see you next week.