Romania

Beginning in 1992 with a small home-care team in the city of Brasov, our first Romanian charity partner, Hospice Casa Sperantei, has now become the leading palliative care and palliative care education provider in the region. The Princess Diana Centre for Palliative Medicine (a residential training centre) was then opened in 1997 in Brasov, followed in 2002 by the first in-patient unit and associated day-care and out-patient facilities. In 2011, we pioneered two mobile teams in Brasov County (Fagaras and Zarnesti) which serve poor rural populations.

In 2014, a further in-patient unit was opened in Bucharest, plus day care facilities. In 2018, we completed work on a Centre for children and families affected by life-limiting conditions, in Adunatii Copaceni, near Bucharest, which started operating in 2019 and became fully functional in 2021. We are working to expand the services at Copaceni from 2022 onwards.

Emanuel Hospice is the only provider of palliative home-care services in the North West of Romania. Without Emanuel Hospice, patients who need specialised palliative care services would not be able to access it from home and would need to travel long-distance to receive care.

In Oradea there is a private hospital for palliative care, but it is a business. The prices are high, the quality of services is questionable and a very limited number of patients/ families are able to pay the high fees set for patients care. There are no other paediatric palliative care providers in the North West part of Romania, except Emanuel Hospice who has a specialised team.