STEALERS OF CHILDREN

From Gardianul (Oct 06, 2006)

THE AUTHORITIES MAINTAIN THAT THERE ARE STEALERS OF CHILDREN IN THE MATERNITY HOSPITALS

Although it has been demonstrated that volunteers from charitable organizations have been involved in trafficking children and have profitted from the fact that they are allowed to work in maternity and pediatric hospitals, Bogdan Panait, head of the National Authority for Child Protection, has indicated that he does not want them to withdraw their services. Panait affirmed, "I haven't even thought about removing the volunteers from these hospitals. Many of them will be the social workers of the future here in Romania." Standing in contradiction of him, however, is Theodora Bertzi who is the head of the Romanian Office for Adoption, and Zita Vatnai the head of the Social Assistance Directorate in Bihor county. These two believe that these volunteers actually hinder the work of the hospitals. Bertzi declared, "I don't understand what role these volunteers play in a maternity hospital. Why do they need to work with newborns? There are cases where children have had operations or are in casts and have need of care. Why are these people not over there?" Zita Vatnai said, "Under the cover of saying that they want to help, these volunteers try to do unorthodox things." This is also the opinion of Theodora Bertzi who declared that she suspects that these volunteers are spying. She explained, "From the information that they hold, the volunteers from these foundations are involved in spying regarding adoptions. More precisely, they are spying in these maternity and pediatric hospitals as well as orphanages in order to find abandoned children who could possibly be adopted illegally. They are in fact undercover informers." She also declared that Bogdan Panait is not the one who decides whether the volunteers will be allowed in hospitals or not. Theodora Bertzi stated, "Panait doesn't put them in the hospitals nor can he take them out. It is the Ministry of Health who will decide the destiny of these volunteers. For example, the Health Department in Oradea decided that volunteers from foundations can no longer go into maternity hospitals." At the beginning of August, CPS Bihor discovered that one of the volunteers from the Hope House Foundation stole an 18 month old child from the hospital. The volunteer had been sent by the NGO for the purpose of helping the medical personnel with the children who were in that institution. Representatives of the CPS System said that the child was then sold to a family from Romania who badly wanted to adopt a young child.