Playing Russian Roulette with Roma Health

Due to a shortage of qualified medical personnel and an inadequate medical infrastructure, it is difficult for Roma communities living in Vrancea County, Romania, to access public health services. Statistics indicate a high rate of infant mortality, as well as large numbers of cases involving measles and tuberculosis (TB), lice infestation, and chronic disease. With a national health care system approaching collapse, and far from satisfying the needs of all the insured citizens, the Roma are frequently excluded.

The lack of health insurance, specialized medical personnel, adequate medical infrastructure, doctors’ goodwill, and basic information on fundamental individual rights, coupled with ever deepening poverty, has turned the goal of improving Roma health into a seemingly impossible dream for Vrancea County in 2007. Racial prejudice and intolerance also play a part in keeping Roma out of the health care system. Their absence from the health care system is reflected in statistics showing high rates of premature births and infant mortality, chronic measles and TB foci, widespread lice infestations, high rates of unemployment and dropping out of school, and a life expectancy well below the national average. Over the last two months, we have had the opportunity to verify these alarming statistics by traveling to communities with the largest Roma populations. Our conclusion: In the absence of sustained institutional efforts and special programs focused on bringing the health care system closer to the patient, there are very few people working to remove the barriers blocking the Roma communities’ access to public health care.

The Authorities Tacitly Approve of an “Everyone for Himself” Policy

As part of a project set up by the Center for Independent Journalism, with the support of the Open Society Institute’s Public Health Program, the publication Ziarul de Vrancea examined the Roma’s plight in Vrancea County through a series of surveys conducted in the largest communities—Slobozia Bradului, Marasesti, Homocea, Chiojdeni, Timboiesti, Argea, and Sihlea. In Argea, where some Roma are often accused by local authorities as participating in deforestation and human trafficking, we found a community of thrifty people, who earn an honest living as shepherds and farmers. Their health, however, is in very bad shape. “We are all upset because the doctor won’t come to see us,” the villagers told us in unison. “Let’s be honest here! Their access to health services is very difficult. We are so few and they have a lot of problems,” Dr. Lucian Bulza Ciuperca admitted. He provides medical services for the Plocuteni Commune area, which includes the village of Argea.

Roma from Homocea travel the whole country trading lambs or walnuts; those from Sihlea used to work as musicians and have now become skilled builders; in Chiojdeni, the Roma are true masters of wood carving; while virtually every Roma in Timboiesti has grown accustomed to prosperity and family planning after working in Greece three months out of the year. In Slobozia Bradului, the Roma enjoy life and own almost 1,000 Dacia pickup trucks with which they earn the daily bread for the more than 1,200 children in their community. But these happy cases are so rare that they are not usually included in statistics. The worst situations are found in Marasesti, Chiojdeni, or Timboiesti, where every home seems to broadcast a story of poverty, hunger, disease, and ignorance. Because so many Roma are without health insurance and subsequently are shut out of medical services and because Roma are often the victims of intolerance and discrimination, the Vrancea Authority for Public Health has labeled the poor Roma communities as “hot spots” on its map of Vrancea County.

Roma Percentage Unknown

In Vrancea, the Roma live in seven main communities. No one knows for sure how many Roma live there because the authorities operate with three different sets of figures: one of them from the County Directorate for Statistics according to which 6,813 Roma live in the county, half of them residing in Slobozia Bradului; another one from the mayoralties, indicating a few thousand more; and a third, which seems more realistic, by the County Office for the Roma, an agency subordinate to the Prefect, which estimates 21,000 Roma. The education level in Roma communities varies between 0 and 90 percent, while over 80 percent of Roma have neither a job nor land. In Focsani alone, only 17 percent have ID papers. Most Roma live in dire conditions because the traditional trades, which some still practice, are no longer appreciated by the community. Even if there are no documents to prove this, the Roma know that centuries ago they were brought as slaves to Vrancea by the feudal boyars to till the land or as the property of the abbeys. The last boyars disappeared during communism but the Roma remained oscillating between what sociologists call “relative poverty” and “absolute poverty.”

As evidence of Roma communities not being widely accepted—merely tolerated—most communities such as the Modruzeni neighborhood in Marasesti, the Argea village from the Ploscuteni commune, and the Luncile village in Chiojdeni have all developed in isolation, on the outskirts, or in semi-closed communities. This has widened the socio-cultural gap between Roma and the majority population. The Vrancea Roma “clans” have no bulibasa (traditional Roma community leader), and only those living in Slobozia Bradului still speak the Romany language. The communities differ according to traditional occupations and lifestyles; some are nomadic and barter from village to village, others trade recyclable materials. Abandoned at the edge of society, the Roma live in islands of poverty where the local authorities intervene only when action is strictly necessary. Like the Romanian society, the Roma community as a whole consists of rich and poor people. The former, who are very few, live in palaces, drive SUVs, and wear Stetsons while the latter continue to live in clay shanties without running water and, if they are lucky, get a monthly benefit from the mayor’s office.

No Health Insurance

At present, most Roma do not have health insurance mainly because they are too poor to afford to pay the monthly contribution, but also because they are uninformed or lack the proper papers. The Roma were clearly affected by the modification of Law 416/2001 concerning the guaranteed minimum income, under which even a TV and a chicken can be considered income. Under Romanian law, only those who are literally starving are exempted from paying their contribution to the health insurance fund. In the Timboiesti commune, for example, out of more than 1,800 Roma, only 30 are exempt from paying the contribution because they live exclusively on financial assistance provided by the government. The rest are uninsured and many are quite sick. They do not have access to medical services unless their life is in danger. Article 259 paragraph (7) of Law no. 95/2006, on reforming the health care system, provides that persons the government is obligated to insure who fail to prove payment of this contribution thus are required to pay an amount that covers their contribution for the last five years. If this amount is calculated based on the minimum salary, it can go as high as 1,500 lei. Even the monthly pay of 20 lei, which is 7 percent of the minimum salary, is too expensive for an impoverished person to afford.

Although the number of those who seek health insurance has increased recently, most people gave up once they realized how much they have to pay; trying to handle their problems the best they could. For example, in order not to be compelled to pay for the hospitalization necessary for kidney surgery, a 58-year-old woman from Timboiesti had to marry a pensioner last year in order to achieve the status of co-insured. Precisely because of the large number of uninsured, a 2006 report on the health condition of Roma communities proposed that the Ministry of Public Health assign the National Health Insurance Fund to study the consequences of a possible nullification of the obligation for retroactive payment for both the financial circuit and for people’s access to medical assistance. “The government has announced its plan to reduce the period for which the insured have to prove payment of their contribution to the health insurance fund from five years to six months, but that is just a proposal. We have to abide by the law,” said Mihai Copaci, president and manager of the Vrancea County Health Insurance Fund.

Addressing the Infant Mortality Rate

As in any other impoverished community, those who suffer most from the lack of medical services are mothers and children. Dr. Alin Lazea, a counselor with the Authority for Public Health (ASP) who specializes in the problems of mother and child protection, says the situation is directly influenced by poverty and a lack of education, but that its main cause is the “total disconnect” between hospitals and family doctors. Although mother and child care have been declared a top priority by the Ministry of Public Health, in reality, access to primary and specialized care is still very difficult to obtain. Thus, many Roma mothers who give birth at the Sfantum Pantelimon County Emergency Hospital in Focsani are not registered with any family doctor. Following our interpellations, the health authorities admitted that Roma children without papers are not registered with a pediatrician. It is no wonder then that, in the context of a high birthrate, the infant mortality rate in Vrancea is rather high, somewhere between 10 and 20 percent whereas it varies from 6 to 7 percent in other EU countries. According to an eight-year survey of the infant death rate (1999-2006), 517 children died in Vrancea County in the first month of their lives. Most deaths occurred in impoverished communities, particularly in Roma communities, where the birthrate is traditionally high.

“If it lives, it lives, if it dies, it dies!” an expecting mother from Slobozia Bradului told us about her unborn child, when questioned why she had not undergone prenatal examination. Then she added, “If you go to the hospital without any money, they won’t even look at you. Every time I gave birth they shouted at me and said I get pregnant too often ‘cause we, Gypsy women, spawn like rabbits.” The statistics show a progressive decrease of the infant mortality rate, but this year the figures have risen once more, alarming health authorities. As usual, the Roma are the most affected.

Abandoned by Doctors During Labor

Last year, two Roma women had serious problems while trying to give birth to their children in the maternity wards of Vrancea County; they claim that certain hospital employees failed to do their duty. Geanina Onofrei, a 28-year-old woman from Homocea commune, will never bear children again, because her uterus was removed after a failed birth. On August 24, 2006, Onofrei arrived at the maternity ward in Adjud Municipal Hospital in labor; there she came under gynecologist Vitali Betisor’s care. “He made me an injection to hasten the birth, broke the waters and left!” Onofrei said. The woman was left to give birth assisted only by the nurses. As the baby would not come out on its own and the doctor guided the nurses by phone, a retired doctor was called up from home, but he could do nothing for the poor woman. In agonizing pain, Geanina Onofrei was rushed to the maternity ward of Sfantum Pantelimon County Hospital in Focsani, but while in transit she slipped into a coma. The woman told us she had waited for an ambulance in the lobby for 25 minutes. Geanina’s 4.3 kg baby died, but her life was finally saved by a team of four doctors.

“We literally trembled for this woman’s life,” said Dr. Marin Popescu, head of the obstetrics-gynecology section in Focsani and the doctor who led the team. As both the child’s and the woman’s lives had been put in great danger, Dr. Popescu publicly demanded an investigation into medical malpractice. This incident, however, remained shrouded in silence for over nine months until another case of failed birth, also involving a Roma mother, raised questions about the ethnicity of the two unfortunate patients. In its reply to questions from Ziarul de Vrancea while we were gathering material for this article, the Authority for Public Health claimed that the investigation conducted by the County Medical College through its special commission concluded that it was not a case of medical malpractice. Dr. Betisor told both the press and his colleagues who carried out the investigation that on the day in question his shift had ended and he had to leave the town. Grateful for having come out of her ordeal alive, the scarred woman refused to file a complaint with the police.

History Repeating Itself

Several months later, another woman from the Roma community in Cimpuri lived through a shocking experience in the maternity ward of the largest hospital in Vrancea County. After checking in on December 23, 2006, at the Obstetrics-Gynecology Department of Sfantum Pantelimon Emergency County Hospital, Vasilica Catana, 32, learned on January 9 that the baby she was carrying died. The doctors told her that the baby was asphyxiated by the umbilical cord. The woman claimed the medical staff neglected her and consequently she had to give birth to her dead baby in the ward, only assisted by her sister-in-law who was visiting her.

“The cord pathology is frequent in obstetrical practice and it cannot be predicted,” Dr. Nicolae Moise, the recently fired hospital manager commented. Six months after the incident, the health authorities have still not published the results of their promised investigation. On the contrary, the hospital management scolded the press for writing about the woman’s sufferings which “encouraged certain classes of patients and their visitors to display primitive behavior towards the medical personnel.” When we requested details about what caused the death of the child in the maternity ward, the Authority for Public Health claimed the fault lay with the Roma mother who failed to take proper care of her pregnancy: “The patient had problems during pregnancy (she was diagnosed with hypertension and was hospitalized for seven days). She gave birth prematurely (after 34 weeks of pregnancy) to a 2,300 grams dead male fetus.”

The documents that the Vrancea Authority for Public Health made public add that the pathologic examination concluded that the mother’s hypertension induced the miscarriage. “The patient said the family doctor and the gynecologist examined her, but there had been very few visits (three altogether) and they were made during the early months of pregnancy, when the fetus’s condition could not be properly assessed,” the investigating team added. In other words, during the two weeks of hospitalization, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, no one realized the mother had a high risk pregnancy. “I spent the holidays in the hospital. After January 3 or 4, when I knew I should have given birth, I started asking the doctors to make a caesarian, but they ignored me. At one point I felt the baby wasn’t moving anymore,” the mother told Ziarul de Vrancea. Despite their wish to sue the doctors for malpractice, the family gave up and chose to dedicate their time and resources to their other two children.

Despite the openness of Dr. Popescu, the head of the obstetrics-gynecology department, when discussing the previous case, when asked about the latter case or about the health problems of Roma women in general, he bluntly refused saying he was unhappy with the way in which the journalists covered the second case. Furthermore, the doctor claimed the woman only wanted to cause a scandal because she could no longer cash her child support money. (204 lei).

The following stories of Vrancea’s Roma communities accompanied the original article.

No One to Deliver Babies Anymore

Currently, Vrancea County is going through an acute shortage of obstetrian-gynecologist specialists and if any of the current doctors are suspended as a result of an incident similar to the ones mentioned above, some of the hospital shifts would have to be cut. For example, Dr. Vitalie Betisor, works for three health units: Adjud Municipal Hospital, Marasesti Town Hospital, and the County Ambulance Service. This year, four of the most active gynecologists in the county are due to retire. “The jobs were posted, but no applicant has shown up,” explains Dr. Lazea, a counselor with ASP, who also works shifts in the hospital precisely because of this shortage.

“Soon, four doctors alone will deliver all the children who are born in this county, which means about 4,000 every year. At this time the system is seriously disturbed and there is no hope we will have any young specialists coming to Vrancea soon. Let us not forget that the gynecology residency lasts six years,” Dr. Lazea added.

While the hospitals in Odobesti and Vidra have hired retired gynecologists, the hospital in Marasesti, the city with the second highest birthrate, has no gynecologist. The health authorities believe that without help from the local communities, which should offer facilities to the young specialists, the situation can only get worse and those who will suffer the most will be the poor.

Slobozia Bradului and the Demographic Explosion

Slobozia Bradului is a commune which gynecologists often refer to as “the kids factory.” Over 3,700 Roma citizens live there, making it the largest rural community in Vrancea and the second largest in Romania, according to the 2002 census. According to ASP, the birthrate in this commune is 34 percent, while in most other communes the rate stays below 4 percent. Basically, 2,075 women give birth to 180 children every year and one family doctor alone (Dr. Maria Parvana) cannot examine them all. Her list of patients includes no less than 2,747 persons, a record number indeed.

“The local population is impoverished on a social, cultural, and health care level. There are frequent cases of 13-14 year-old girls who become mothers, we are dealing with multiple births,” Dr. Lazea informed us. The main cause of the explosion in this demographic is the locals’ adherence to the Pentecostal Church, which forbids contraception. “Because they want to live by their religious faith, the people in that commune have this birthrate problem. According to their faith, if you have many children you are blessed by God,” Costel Razvan Irimita, a community nurse, told us. The Roma who live here are very traditional, so, teenage girls abandon school and get married very early, even if they have not experienced their first menstruation. A sanitary mediator, who preferred not to have her identity revealed, had this to say:

We know a 10-year old girl who is now living with her in-laws. Our people have the custom of dancing with the bride’s blood-stained shirt in front of all the relatives, so the young couple have to start their sex life whether they want it or not, because the parents put so much pressure on them. If the bride is not a virgin, the marriage is called off and she is sent to her parents’ house. If a girl is in fourth grade at primary school it means she is old and no one will marry her. We have even had a case of marriage between two cousins.

From the wedding day until the moment the first child is born, usually only nine months pass. For this reason the area is also known for its record of premature births. The women from Slobozia Bradului were last examined by a gynecologist in the election year 2004 when, as part of its campaign, the former government party (the Social Democrats) set up a health care caravan. In four hours, the gynecologist examined over 200 women. The second highest birthrate is in the town of Marasesti, where the birthrate has varied between 14 and 18 percent over the last seven years. Here lives the second largest Roma community in the county. Even if 46 children have been born since the year began, the local hospital does not have a gynecological specialist and the gynecology rotation has been canceled.

The whole town relies on the services of only one gynecologist from the nearby town of Adjud, Dr. Vitali Betisor, who comes to Marasesti three times a week in the afternoon. Due to the amount of work this doctor has he has no time to assist the expecting mothers in the maternity ward. “We have posted this job several times but no applicant showed up for the contest. The only shift that is still operational in this hospital is the one on general practice,” Dr. Jana Ciuperca, the hospital manager stated.

Thirty-Nine Children Die Because of Miscommunication

While pregnant women are not adequately examined, newborn children also face difficult conditions and the statistics are alarming with regards to their mortality rate. For example, over the past three years, in Slobozia Bradului alone, 12 babies died shortly after leaving the maternity ward. Most of the deceased children suffered from respiratory diseases. ASP admits the infants are not properly monitored after checking out of the maternity ward and the responsibility is shared by the hospital, the family, and the family doctor.

“Statistics have indicated that almost half of the deaths among the zero to one-year-old children occur during the baby’s first month, particularly in the first week. Therefore, the problem lies with the baby’s transfer from the hospital to the family and with the family doctor’s monitoring of the newborn baby,” according to a report on the condition of Vrancea County’s health indicators in 2005–2006. In other words, many of the 39 children who died last year in the first month of their lives could have been saved if the primary care network had been ready to properly monitor the newborn babies.

“That many of the deaths occur during the first month and particularly in the first week is not something that distinguishes the Roma communities from the Romanian ones,” Dr. Cornelia Draguna, the ASP Vrancea director explained. She claimed effective prevention depends on people’s health education but also on their living conditions and the authorities’ involvement. According to Dr. Draguna, prevention includes a parent’s obligation to register the newborn with the Registrar’s Office; protection of children’s rights (by the authorities and the parents); an obligation to send the child home from the maternity ward by ambulance; calling the family doctor immediately after the mother has left the hospital so the doctor can examine the baby within 24–48 hours after its arrival home; and intervening when the child is in a difficult situation (e.g., the mother is intellectually challenged, the family is hostile, or the father is an alcoholic).

“Every one of these goals could be achieved if all the decision makers work more closely together,” ASP Vrancea indicates.

Miles on Foot, Baby in Arms

Currently, no one takes care of mothers and children unless they call for the family doctor’s help. Frequently, days after giving birth, mothers leave the maternity ward and travel to their homes which are miles away from the hospital by bus or even on foot, all while carrying the babies in their arms. “We have therefore recommended that the poor mothers benefit from free transportation home by ambulance, but the hospital officials said there is not enough money. If a mother leaves the hospital by bus, and has to endure the cold or the heat and the dust, can her child arrive home safe and sound?” Dr. Lazea wondered. In addition, Sfantum Pantelimon Emergency County Hospital in Focsani, where 90 percent of the children in the county are born, has stopped calling the family doctor when a mother leaves the hospital with her baby. Dr. Viorica Cristescu, a family doctor from Timboiesti, a commune with over 1,800 Roma, told us:

Occasionally, we may learn from ordinary people in the village that a woman has given birth because the hospital hasn’t called us in years, probably due to financial problems. It would be great if they could resume informing us; it would be a lot easier for us to track that baby and start its health record. It often takes one month before the Roma mothers come to us with their children’s birth certificates. And if they don’t have a personal code number they can’t get free medication in case they are ill.

Dr. Lazea wants to implement a solution designed to improve the health indicators:

The hospital officials said they have no money to spend on making phone calls, but every day, one of our community nurses will take the list of children who checked out of the maternity and we’ll make that call to the family doctor. We can’t make family doctors include adults on their lists but they are compelled to include children and they have to examine them within 48 hours. If the mortality rate drops to one half of what it is today, we are happy. In addition, our goal is to bring the hospital in closer contact with the family doctors because what we have now is a total gap.

Under the provisions of the contract on individual medical care, the doctors are obligated to register children at the time of their first examination. Newborns are to be included on a list kept by the family doctor who provided care to the mother during her pregnancy, unless the parents express their preference for another doctor immediately following the birth. But in reality, this does not happen and no one knows how many children are left off the doctors’ patient lists. It all becomes very clear especially during the inoculation campaigns. Besides, there are still many Roma mothers who have no ID themselves and do not bother to get one for their children either.

“Very often, the mothers have absolutely no education and simply cannot understand the importance of registering their babies with the Registrar’s Office. I have recently had a 17-year-old Roma mother in the birth room. She was from Focsani but she had no papers and hadn’t been examined by any doctor during her pregnancy. Absence of ID papers is a major problem since a child with no ID is simply unaccounted for,” Dr. Lazea told us.

No Examination Until Birth

Given the large number of the patients who overload the family doctors’ lists, the health authorities admit that pregnant women are poorly monitored, and that this is reflected in the high incidence of premature births. “Mortinatality (stillborn rate) was relatively high in 2004, 2005, and 2006 in Vrancea County due to the premature births, malformations and, last but not least, the mothers’ unhealthy eating habits,” Dr. Draguna, the ASP Vrancea director told us in response to questions from Ziarul de Vrancea.

The doctors blame it on the mothers who are poorly fed and are physically active during pregnancy. The ASP report shows that “the family doctors and the obstetricians should monitor the pregnant women more effectively in order to avoid premature births.” In fact, none of the more than 20 pregnant Roma women our reporters talked to had been monitored by the local family doctor. “Why do women have to pay for their medical tests? Aren’t they supposed to be free?” asked Vasilica Bataru, a health and sanitary mediator from the Homocea Roma community, who is unhappy with the family doctors’ habit of sending pregnant women to the town of Adjud to pay for their medical tests.

Measles Gets the Blame

The frequency of measles is a strong indicator of Roma children’s health. As expected, the localities where large Roma communities live are the most affected by the disease. The last three years’ statistics indicate the highest measles incidence in the communes of Ploscuteni, Homocea, Slobozia Bradului, and Chiojdeni. ASP officials claim this is due to the ineffectiveness of both the family doctors’ and the local administration’s effort to persuade people to have their children inoculated.

The latest campaign, conducted in April this year when the authorities celebrated European Vaccination Week, was a complete failure. Of the 2,500 Roma children from Marasesti and Slobozia Bradului only 300 were inoculated. ASP concluded that the blame lies with the doctors, but also with the Roma, who don’t want to be inoculated because they are afraid of post-immunization symptoms. However, vaccination is the only effective method to fight rubeola.

“The high incidence of this disease can be explained by the poor coverage of the vaccination campaign, as the children either failed to show up or, in the case of many who did, they were sick and their inoculation had to be postponed. Besides, not all the Roma children have a family doctor and thus, they are not included in the vaccination program,” the ASP director claims.

The most problematic case is that of Homocea, a commune with three family doctors and, at the same time, the locality with half of the total number of measles cases detected in the county. Since 2005, this commune has been the site of several outbreaks of measles, totaling 64 cases, while most other localities have barely reported one case. The doctors say they have to entice the Roma mothers to bring their babies to the immunization center. “Last year we ‘bribed’ them with milk powder and this was how they finally brought their children to the vaccination center. This year we had no sponsors and the vaccination campaign was unsuccessful,” Dr. Lazea said.

Community Nurse Learns Romany

The 16 health and sanitary mediators and the 80 community nurses in the county are often the health authorities’ only reliable sources of information about the Roma communities. They are extremely useful because they mediate the relationship between the Roma community and the local health authorities. Since many Roma in the summer migrate in search of jobs, whole families move to the vineyards in the county.

Emilia Caldare, a community nurse from Virtescoiu, requested that the ASP in Vrancea facilitate her cooperation with a sanitary mediator living in a a neighboring commune due to the large number of Roma who are employed as seasonal workers in the vineyards around the area. Caldare thinks that a mediator could get her closer to the Roma. “There are several Roma families who live in appalling conditions in the hamlet of Seaca. As for ‘the crawling bombs’ [lice] I found that the infestation was very widespread. I would like to get more involved, so that we could set up special, isolated places for the mother and child in those farms. I started to learn Romany, just to be able to better communicate with them,” the community nurse told us.

The mediators’ job is a difficult one. Aside from providing the Roma with ID papers and registering them with the family doctor, they have also been assigned to check the water sources. Lacramioara Taoder and Maria Chifor, the two health and sanitary mediators in Marasesti told us:

In Marasesti, we have more than 2,000 Roma with no family doctor, including over 300 children. Since Dr. Catalina Birgu left, 150 women have stopped taking their pills and now some of them are pregnant again. We are open 24 hours a day, people knock on our doors even at midnight. Even if we can’t help them otherwise, a piece of advice doesn’t cost anything. Even if we work hard, a street sweeper earns more than we do. We are employed for a limited period of time, so no bank will give us a credit.

In other places, the problems the health and sanitary mediators have to solve are equally delicate. “In Panciu, there are women who stopped using the intrauterine device so as to produce more children and get the 200 RON child support. That would be their only source of income. In the area known as Sovejana we have a real ghetto. I take care of 1,500 Roma in my town,” mediator Veronica Pavel told us. The mediator’s role does not only involve health problems. Pavel said she had once been asked to organize a beauty contest for the young Roma women.

“We have had problems with some doctors who refused to examine Roma women because they lacked personal hygiene,” the two sanitary mediators from Chiojdeni told us. “Gradually, we succeeded in making them more aware. Even so, some doctors are still reluctant to examine (Roma).”

Out of fear that they might have problems with the doctors and the local authorities, some mediators preferred not to discuss such issues or asked for anonymity. “We’ll be living with them in our commune long after you are gone; we have children and if they get sick there’s no where else we can go. The doctor didn’t want to examine me either and laughed at me when I told him I knew my rights; I have to think of the other girls and protect them too,” a sanitary mediator from Valea Ramnicului told us.

Fourth Graders’ Marriage

Since 2002, only one Roma girl from Slobozia Bradului has made it through the eighth grade.

There are 480 children on record at the school in Slobozia Bradului—only 40 are of non-Roma origin (8 percent). The school principal, Ion Aldea, says the school faces a high dropout rate. All the students who quit school are of Roma origin. In the school year 2005–2006, 91 children dropped out of school. Aldea fears the current situation:

A majority of the students who stop attending come from well-off families. At the elementary level (first to fourth grade) most of the dropouts were first and second grade girls. It is not the same every year. There have been cases of fourth grade girls who got married. The highest dropout rate among boys has now shifted from the fifth to the eighth grade. The teachers say the boys lose interest in going to school because they think elementary school is all they need get their driving license. The Roma in our community earn their living mainly by transporting and trading various goods, so their first objective is to get their driving license. Under the driving regulations in force a person can get a driving license if he or she is over 18 and has at least elementary level education. We may have an even higher dropout rate in the near future, as uneducated applicants will also be able to get their driving license.

The girls are in a worse situation. Almost every girl drops out of school in the fifth or sixth grade and immediately gets married. Since 2002, only one Roma girl from Slobozia Bradului has made it through the eighth grade and only a few teenagers in the whole community have graduated from high school. Under such circumstances, the teachers say that without specialized help, there is little hope that the dropout rate could soon be reduced.

Some of the Best Students in the Country

Nevertheless, the students from Slobozia Bradului and Cornetu are very good at the Romany language and their school has two qualified teachers. Ion Marin is a seventh grader who won the second place at the Students’ National Contest of Romany Language which took place in Mangalia in April. Ion Marin and his classmate Mihai Dinica are the only students who got the highest grade (10) at both the mathematics and Romanian language national tests for seventh graders.