Rockin' Babies - Romania: Day 17 - The Day the Inspectors Came

The mobile Evan brought... it was placed on Alina's bed...

In the not to distant past (October, November, beginning of December? can't remember exactly what Mihaela said) Tutova Clinic was horribly (and wrongly!) accused of being an inappropriate place for children. There were allegations of emotional abuse and I don't even know what all else. It was very troubling for Mihaela to share this information with us... Apparently someone visited the Clinic and then went to the government agencies and newspapers saying that the Clinic was keeping children longer than necessary... that the Clinic wanted the children to stay there rather than be placed in foster homes, blah, blah, blah... One of the main targets of the lawsuit (yes, Dr. Delia is having to go to court regarding this issue - we think) was the fact that Ana-Maria was still at the Clinic and she was almost 7 years old. Ana-Maria has severe problems --- both physical and mental... in my opinion few, IF ANY, foster parents in Romania would be willing to open their homes to a child like Ana-Maria... At any rate Child Protective Services came into the Clinic and "forced" the removal of the group they call the "toddlers."
However, strangely enough they left Ana-Maria... does anyone else find this strange that the child they supposedly started the investigation because of was left in this HORRIBLE PLACE (I am being completely facetious!!)

Since Romania wanted to join the European Union they had to find a way to show that they could care for their own children.. thus the halt to international adoptions and the invention of a foster care program. Parents are apparently paid very well to take children in and it looks good for children to be placed in homes.

I think all of us are in agreement that if (AND THAT IS A HUGE IF) there were quality foster homes available and not just people looking to make an easy buck(we have heard rumors of money being paid to CPS placement workers by foster families to ensure they 'get' a child) -- a HOME is always better for a child than an institution, period. However, in the absence of quality homes, TUTOVA CLINIC is a FABULOUS temporary home for the children who need it. The volunteers and staff love the children at Tutova more than you can imagine and there is no "emotional abuse" evident at all! False accusations suck.. there is no other way to say it! I truly wish that those involved with Tutova Hospital and Clinic had never had to deal with this! I pray for them each day that all of this crap will go away and that people in their own country will be thankful for the services they provide!

Now with all that said :-) On Day 17 the inspectors came...

We knew that morning that "inspectors" were coming to visit the Clinic. We didn't fully realize what that meant until later LOL. When we arrived we took the children as always into the playrooms. After a yummy yogurt snack (at about 11am) we were told that the children had to go back into their cribs so that the inspectors could view them one by one. We went into the rooms with the children and tried to entertain them as best we could... Rosie and I stayed with Ema-Elena, Cristi, Alina, Gabriela, and Mihaela. We ended up holding Ema-Elena and Gabriela quite a bit as neither was very happy to be in their crib! No inspectors... at noon the aides brought in their soup bottles... very few babies actually ate the soup... they were quite grumpy and still no inspectors! We (the volunteers) hustled over to the children's ward and ate our lunch then hustled back so we would be there when the inspectors came. Some of the babies were alseep at this point but no one seemed to be napping well (THEIR ENTIRE SCHEDULE WAS THROWN OFF!!).

We were told several times throughout the day that they would be there in "15 minutes." LOL Let me tell you 15 minutes in Romania is a friggin' long time! LOL

When the babies started waking up from their naps we still couldn't take them to the playrooms. Once again we did what we could to keep them entertained -- we put the twins in one crib to play together, Cristi practiced standing holding on to his crib rail, etc. We fed the babies their milk bottles around 3ish (still in their bedrooms)... they took their milk bottles much better! Shortly after bottles it was determined that the inspectors were truly heading over LOL (I was convinced that they were waiting for the volunteers to leave so we wouldn't be there as witnesses! But we all decided we would stay at the clinic all night if that is what it took to be there!! Evan was a CPS worker in California early in her professional life and Dr. Delia wanted her to be able to speak to the inspectors and give her opinion based on her previous work. We were excited that she would get this opportunity but they didn't talk with her. :-( )

The inspectors finally did arrive shortly after 3. Half of the inspectors were from the Ministry of Health and half were from Child Protective Services. When they came into our room we greeted them in English and Romanian. I was able to make out some of what Dr. Delia was saying: "Ema-Elena... spastic cerebral paralysis... Cristi... down's syndrome... Gabriela.. Mihaela.." lol okay so I couldn't make out much! But apparently the inspectors had been reviewing each individual child's record while they were in the hospital with Dr. Delia (which makes me feel much better! I am glad they truly reviewed the medical reocrds on the children instead of just making up their own opinions). The inspectors stopped for a long time at Mihaela's crib... Dr. Delia had a heated discussion with a lady (who we called one ugly name but was actually the legal representative for CPS)...

A funny thing, which probably won't be funny to anyone but previous volunteers... Mihaela at one point with all the inspectors in the room accidentally hit her head on the rails of her crib... the inspector (that none of us liked.. the lady we called an ugly name -- hey bear with me my first and second graders are reading this!! LOL) leaned over into the crib and "fussed" at Mihaela saying "nu, nu... more Romanian things here that I didn't understand.. nu, nu (nu means no)". To me it seemed like she was fussing at Mihaela for "banging" her head which can be a self-stimulation thing that children in institutions do at time.. BUT not Mihaela.. she is one of the most normal children you would ever meet! LOL All day I was stopping Cristi from his favorite self-stim (rolling/rocking back and forth) and Alina from her self-stim (getting on all 4s and rocking) so that the inspectors wouldn't think this was horribly negative and then BAM, Mihaela does something they think is self-stim LOL... Just struck me as hilarious but it may have been the stress of the day! LOL

The inspectors finally visited all the rooms and left. You could see the tension leave the clinic with the inspectors... the staff, bless their hearts, had been so uptight and nervous all day! Finally it was over!! We took the babies into the playrooms for some moving around, lovey time... THEN we had Ana-Maria's birthday party!!