CHILDREN ABANDONED IN HOSPITALS

Article by Rompres

CHILDREN ABANDONED IN HOSPITALS MISS OUT ON THEIR RIGHTS AS ROMANIAN CITIZENS

Children who are abandoned in hospitals and who have no documents regarding their identity do not have any rights as Romanian citizens under the current law of child protection because their existence is not officially recognized. The situation of these children resulted in the organizing of a public debate at the Caritas hospital. The initiator of this debate is the director of Caritas hospital, Bogdan Jansean, who raised the problem regarding the impossibility of being reimbursed by the national health insurance for medical services performed with regards to these abandoned newborns. The reason why the children have no rights is because there was no personal ID code assigned to them, no do they have family names and surnames.

The representative of the National Institute of Personnel Records, Paraschiv Petu, declared that the obtaining of a personal numeric code (ID number) is strictly related to a person's name. The only way a situation can be resolved, is to modify law nr.272/2004 regarding the protection of the rights of the child.

Another proposal which was put forth was the creation of special funds by the government for these children in order to help cover the costs of taking care of these abandoned newborns until they obtain their identity documents and can come under the care of the state.

According to the general director of the Ministry of Health, Ioan Buraga, there were 4,500 children abandoned in maternity hospitals and pediatric hospitals in 2005. This is 700 fewer than in 2004. Of these 4,500, 150 still do not have any identity documents. Thus, from a legal point of view, these children cannot benefit from any rights that are available to Romanian citizens.