Romanian Orphanages
Romanian Orphanages
Imagine a hospital that, at one time ran smoothly helping the public, now with the primary objection of taking care of the thousands of abandoned infants and children. This is the reality in Romania when Nicolae Ceausescu was in power. In 1966 he created an Anti-Abortion/Contraception law in order to raise the population and achieve his ultimate goal to slowly take over surrounding areas and increase Romania’s power. The next plan of action was to open orphanages, which caused an entire generation of mentally and physically handicapped children. Now after more than four decades, the question is if they have made enough progression on this horrific issue. Ceausescu’s law included that each family that doesn’t have at least five children can not use birth control or contraception, but most families couldn’t afford to take care of them so they had to turn them over to the government. The combination of being under funded and understaffed caused the children to be neglected and even worse abused. In Romania’s many institutions, the ratio of child to caretaker was 1 to 65 until as late as 1990(Gloviczki). In any Daycare in the united states the ratio for infants is one to four, this is for the safety and constant development of the babies. The effect the small number of staff had on the children is the lack of stimulation. Baby’s brains are continuously hungry for stimulation and if there is none then the development is delayed. Professor Michael Rutter did a study on children adopted into England. The first of the three groups was adopted from within the country, the second was adopted from Romania before the age of 6 months, the last was adopted from Romania after the age of 6 months. He studied the effects on brain progression as a result of institutionalization and the results were shocking. “When they first arrived in the country as babies, more than half the 165 children he studied showed severe delays in development
Imagine a hospital that, at one time ran smoothly helping the public, now with the primary objection of taking care of the thousands of abandoned infants and children. This is the reality in Romania when Nicolae Ceausescu was in power. In 1966 he created an Anti-Abortion/Contraception law in order to raise the population and achieve his ultimate goal to slowly take over surrounding areas and increase Romania’s power. The next plan of action was to open orphanages, which caused an entire generation of mentally and physically handicapped children. Now after more than four decades, the question is if they have made enough progression on this horrific issue. Ceausescu’s law included that each family that doesn’t have at least five children can not use birth control or contraception, but most families couldn’t afford to take care of them so they had to turn them over to the government. The combination of being under funded and understaffed caused the children to be neglected and even worse abused. In Romania’s many institutions, the ratio of child to caretaker was 1 to 65 until as late as 1990(Gloviczki). In any Daycare in the united states the ratio for infants is one to four, this is for the safety and constant development of the babies. The effect the small number of staff had on the children is the lack of stimulation. Baby’s brains are continuously hungry for stimulation and if there is none then the development is delayed. Professor Michael Rutter did a study on children adopted into England. The first of the three groups was adopted from within the country, the second was adopted from Romania before the age of 6 months, the last was adopted from Romania after the age of 6 months. He studied the effects on brain progression as a result of institutionalization and the results were shocking. “When they first arrived in the country as babies, more than half the 165 children he studied showed severe delays in development