Kathy's Ministry at Oradea
Children's Hospital

There is a shortage of staff in the Children’s Hospital. Rather than hold the babies to feed them, the staff prop bottles with blankets and don’t pick the babies up to burp them but just flip them onto their stomachs where they often vomit or scream from gas pain. Picking up a baby and loving him or her is rarely done in the hospital; there is a serious problem of neglect. The babies are never taken out of their cribs to sit in a seat or be up in a walker. The children can become handicapped simply from spending their lives lying in their cribs. Unfortunately, the Children’s Hospital has become like an orphanage with so many unwanted children brought there and left.

Kathy has been involved in this ministry since 2000. In September 2004, Kathy began to hire Romanian women and students to work in the hospital with these abandoned babies. Marina, Mia and Elly have since moved on. Vera now works with the abandoned premature babies full-time, and Dorina and Rodica are now our full-time workers with the abandoned handicapped babies. Lia, Anisoara, Dora and Irma cover both wards on the weekends. There is less staff on the weekends and less care. The babies need love and care on the weekends too! If our women were not there, hours would go by without anyone entering their rooms. These women do a great job of feeding and loving the babies, getting them up out of their cribs and letting them move.

Our mission is to the abandoned babies in the Children’s Hospital, and through this work Romanian women desperately in need of jobs are also being helped.

For example, two years ago Vera had been working in a sewing factory and had her wages withheld for a few months (which happens in Romania for various reasons) – when she tried to fight it she was replaced and at the same time her husband had a heart attack and it wasn’t clear if he would live or not. They have three teenagers and an adopted five-year old boy, the child of an orphan who had no means to raise him. It was a very desperate time with both Vera and her husband out of work and her husband’s monthly medication bill consuming two-thirds of his disability pension. This opportunity to work in the hospital with the abandoned babies was an answer to their prayers. Vera is a loving “mama” and the doctors on the premature ward are delighted with her work and her care of the babies.

All our women are so thankful to all the generous supporters who gave them this opportunity for work in the hospital. The babies have done and continue to do so well under their care and love. The babies are prevented from becoming handicapped and the handicapped ones are developing to the very best of their abilities. Donations also go to provide extra formula, cereal, bananas and yogurt to combat malnutrition.

A very beautiful story has been unfolding with Soledad, a severely handicapped child and Rodica, a young woman who had worked with children with Down’s Syndrome but who had been let go due to lack of funds. Since 2004, Soledad who lives in an state orphanage group home, had been making great progress from her hospital visits where she was on Kathy’s section. Our women gave her warm baths and long massages because her body was like a piece of wood. With these therapies, she loosened up and was able to bend her body to sit and loved having her arms raised over her head. She also got her fingers unclenched from her palms and Soledad, who is also blind, was able to feel for things. After a 3 month hospital visit in 2006, Soledad was sent back to the orphanage home. The large orphanage institution is now closed – the children and babies are all living in state group homes but with the same lack of care; it’s still a condition of neglect. Kathy heard that the people working in Soledad’s group home didn’t want her back and when she went to visit her two weeks after Soledad had been back, Soledad was completely shut down and unresponsive – it was just heartbreaking. Kathy hired Rodica to work with her and the other children in that group home. Soledad became alive and happy again knowing she was loved, and the other children there in that house also benefited from Rodica’s energy, love and song.

What was a wonderful situation for the children in that group home, didn’t continue. Rodica upset the norm of leaving these handicapped children to lie all day. Soledad began to develop fevers when Rodica wasn’t there, and was admitted frequently to the hospital. She would recover with Rodica taking care of her in the hospital, be sent back to the home where within 24 hours she would develop a fever again and be sent back to the hospital. This became a predictable pattern and very bad for Soledad. The doctor on our ward saw what was happening and is doing paperwork to keep Soledad with us in the hospital. So Rodica joined our hospital staff in the winter of this year, and our rooms with abandoned babies with genetic problems are now covered for 12 hours. Dorina works from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. and Rodica works with Soledad and the other babies from 1 p.m. until 7 p.m. Rodica quickly became Soledad’s “mama” and even goes in on weekend afternoons to feed her and love her. Dorina who is Evelin’s “mama” often goes in on the weekend mornings to feed Evelin her early bottle, who with a severe cleft palate and mouth deformities is difficult to feed. The devotion of these women to the children is remarkable, and all the children are being blessed.

Kathy’s ministry has been supported from the beginning by private donations and she is very thankful to God for providing funds so that she could hire loving Christian women to impart His love to these very needy little ones.