Carmen Uscatu, Founding Member and President of Give Life, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Morning thought.
Success, even when proven, is punished.
Read this text with the thought that one day it could be about your own child.
This morning, I am working on the project to assess the needs of pediatric oncology at Marie Curie Hospital, using a tool from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It is a complex project spanning nine months, which also analyzes the financial resources necessary for adequately caring for children with cancer. Hundreds of questions are being posed to the hospital’s medical teams, the financial director, and the human resources department.
One of these questions is: What are the main challenges to sustaining and increasing the budget for pediatric oncology services?
The challenges in the public healthcare system are numerous.
However, I reflected on the current challenge the hospital has been trying to resolve since the beginning of this year—one it has not succeeded in overcoming, despite discussions even with the Minister of Health.
The main challenge is a disconnect—I would call it systemic-between performance and funding. The budget is governed by rigid fiscal policies, not by results. The hiring freeze in the public healthcare system means that proven success is punished.
Concretely: In 2024, the oncology department of Marie Curie Hospital treated three times as many patients as in 2023—with the same number of nurses and the same number of doctors in the oncology department. This does not even account for the impact that the increase in oncology patients has on other hospital departments: radiology (for imaging investigations: MRI, ultrasound, CT), laboratory, surgery, etc.
Yet, in 2024 and 2025, the hospital has not been able to hire additional staff.
The impact: exhaustion, brain drain, and a decline in the quality of care.
Increasing the budget requires a governmental decision to exempt essential medical staff from these blanket restrictions—restrictions that do not save lives.”
More posts featuring Carmen Uscatu.