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Centrul de Copii Romano-American (Romanian-American Children's Center)
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A crowd of hundreds gathers on a beautiful day in Constanta, Romania, for a dedication ceremony to inaugurate the Romanian-American Children's Center.
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In partnership with the Romanian Ministry of Health and the Constanta Municipal Hospital, the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative built and has opened the Romanian-American Children’s Center in Constanta, Romania. The center, which includes a state-of-the-art outpatient clinic, an inpatient observation unit, a laboratory and specimen processing area, classrooms, and apartments for visiting health professionals, was dedicated in Constanta on April 6th, 2001.
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Romanian-American Children’s Center
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The Romanian-American Children’s Center is coordinated and staffed collaboratively by Romanian and U.S. health professionals, including physician and nurse-specialists from Baylor. It provides state-of-the-art primary and specialty care and treatment to more than 600 HIV-infected infants and children, representing one of the largest concentrations of HIV-infected infants and children in care in any single center worldwide. The objective of the center is to improve the health, well-being, and longevity of Constanta’s children in general, and HIV-infected women and children in particular. Simultaneously, clinical research conducted in the center will answer scientific questions of worldwide importance. Young eastern European and U.S. health professionals are training side-by-side in the latest HIV management and clinical research techniques.
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Dr. Rodica Matusa
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The children’s center is making a valuable contribution not just to the care and treatment of HIV infection per se, but also to the routine care, psychosocial and child life services, and nutritional education and services that can be offered to Constanta’s children in general. The center serves as a focal point for health professional and community education on a variety of child health issues, and on maternal and pediatric HIV infection specifically. Education and training are provided by a cadre of Romanian and U.S. health professionals, including physicians, nurses, social workers, child life specialists, and nutritionists, on an ongoing basis. The center is building capacity for pediatric HIV/AIDS care and treatment in Constanta and nationwide.
Sustaining funding for the Centrul de Copii Romano-American has been provided by Abbott Laboratories and the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word.
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