Children's Call for Hope

How can we increase the survival rate of children with cancer in Romania? This is the question we asked ourselves, together with Marie S. Curie Children's Hospital of Bucharest, the place where #We have built a Hospital and where we're now building a medical campus. Because 21st century infrastructure and state-of-the art equipment is an important step, but not enough.

Children's Call for Hope is an event dedicated to the future, to collaboration and multidisciplinarity in order to increase the survival rate of children with oncological diseases in Romania. The first edition brought together more than 140 medical professionals of different specializations (oncology, neurosurgery, surgery, ICU, etc.), civil society representatives, as well as private companies, in an attempt to answer our question and identify personal commitments in order to give these children an extra chance of living.

The event was organized together with Marie Curie Hospital and included a visit to the new Hospital, in order to show our guests from all around the country and from all around the world the infrastructure that Dăruiește Viață has created here, with the support of its more than 350,000 donors and 8,000 sponsors. 

Guests came over from the main oncology centers in the country (Cluj, Iași, Timișoara, Brașov, Bacău, Bucharest, Târgu Mureș, Craiova, Oradea), as well as from abroad (Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Bulgaria, Jordan, the USA, the Netherlands). 

The speakers talked about national and international collaboration, as well as a multidisciplinary approach in treating children with cancer, offering best practice examples. The messages regarding the future of the initiative and the collaboration between Dăruiește Viață and Marie Curie Hospital were relayed by the founders of the Association – Carmen Uscatu and Oana Gheorghiu – and the hospital manager, Daniel Buzatu.

Prof. Dr. Rob Pieters, CMO of Prinses Máxima Center, talked about the success of the largest pediatric oncology center in Europe and their dream of reaching a 100% survival rate when it comes to leukemia in the future 10 - 20 years. Together with Dr. Ruxandra Vidlescu, he offered more details regarding the collaboration protocol between Prinses Máxima Center and Marie Curie Hospital. 

Prof. Dr. Saiful Huq, medical physicist and former President of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, talked about the future and the use of technology and artificial intelligence to increase access to good quality treatment, no matter where a child is born.

Prof. Martin Persson from the University of Kristianstad, Sweden) and Arch. Raluca Șoaita spoke about the concept of ”family centric care” in designing spaces and treating children.

The representatives of Marie Curie Hospital: Prof. Dr. Radu Spătaru (CMO), Dr. Ruxandra Vidlescu (chief of Oncology), Dr. Alin Nicolescu (chief of Cardiology), Dr. Sorin Târnoveanu (chief of Neurosurgery), Dr. Radu Tăbăcaru (chief of the ICU) spoke about performance and multidisciplinarity at Marie Curie from a past-present-future perspective. 

Also joining the discussions were:

• H.E. Kathleen A. Kavalec (U.S. Ambassador)
• H.E. Willemijn van Haaften (Ambassador of the Netherlands)
• Stella Kyriakides, European Health and Food Safety Commissionary - video intervention
• Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, President of St. Jude Global - video intervention
• Alina Petrescu (OMV Petrom) and Elena Dincă (Mastercard), as representatives of two of the biggest corporate supporters of the #NoiFacemUnSpital initiative
• Paula Herlo and Alex Dima as moderators 

Here are some of the pledges made by the participants in order to increase the survival rate of children with cancer:

• I will persevere until we succeed
• Patience and teamwork
• Collaboration and communication within the team, as well as with the patients and their families
• Training, involvement
• Continuous training to give the best to the little patients
• Networking
• To always be there for the children and their parents
• To train specialists and people
• A no-pain hospital
• To tell the stories
• To stay together

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Location partner: BT Stup

Photo credit: Banu Ștefan