New surgical unit aims to shorten children’s waits in Romania

Romania’s Marie Curie children’s emergency hospital has unveiled a new surgical unit to help meet growing demand for care. Presented in Bucharest on 21 September, it is expected to begin treating patients in about a month, once final checks and preparations are complete.

The project was carried out by the Inima Copiilor association with financial support from Groupama. It provides two operating rooms, one for general and emergency surgery and another for bone and joint surgery, plus a room for digestive endoscopy, which uses a camera to examine the digestive tract.

The operating rooms have ceiling-mounted air filtration systems to maintain a controlled environment during procedures. A nearby recovery room provides space for children after anaesthesia, a feature medical director Dr Radu Spătaru highlighted as important for patient safety.

The expansion addresses a practical constraint. The hospital’s orthopaedic surgeons currently share a single operating room, despite having the capacity to do more work. Digestive endoscopy services have also grown substantially in recent years and need suitable space.

The hospital serves more than 100,000 children from across Romania annually. Spătaru expects the additional rooms to reduce surgical waiting times and ease stress for young patients and their parents. Those benefits remain ahead, but the new facilities bring the hospital closer to matching its space to its teams’ capabilities.