Sihlea: Poverty Decimates a Forest

In Romania, the health problems of Roma people are more effectively taken care of in areas where the number of Roma is not very high. Family doctor Cristina Cocirlea has a list of 2,700 patients from the community of Sihlea, which includes 500 Roma identified only by the color of their skin (only 177 citizens claimed Roma origin in the latest census). Mayor Ene Stoica says the Roma were brought to Sihlea around 1850 as slaves on the family estate of poet Alexandru Sihleanu. Nowadays, there are several Roma families who have preserved their traditions and still wear their costumes, but they are part of a group of Roma that moved to the area 40 years ago. Even within the same ethnic group there is discrimination; thus, the two Roma subgroups live separately with virtually no interaction between them. Those from the more-recent Hadir clan say the other Roma “aren’t ‘Gypsies’ but have become Romanians.”

From Music to Bricklaying

For decades, many Roma from Sihlea entertained locals at traditional fairs. Some played music; others moved from fair to fair with their merry-go-rounds. The area in which they live is still called “the musicians’ neighborhood” although the most skilled Roma musicians have died and Vrancea County lost its most famous Roma music company. Mayor Stocia says:

When I was a kid, I used to hear music coming out from every yard. The Gypsies’ children were practicing playing their instruments. Now they all work in construction as first rate bricklayers. Yesterday a team of 20 went to Constanta. They go to work in the cities until late in the fall. Only women, children, and the elderly stay at home. We have 500 people who get public assistance, but they realized it’s impossible to live on 200 lei a month.

As the young have enthusiastically embraced their new profession and the old musicians have died, there are fewer and fewer men who decide to carry on with their community’s music playing tradition. Costica Bucataru, also known as Titirica, retired several years ago for medical reasons. He is among the few who still know how to play the ivory keyboard of an old Weltmeister accordion. Bucataru goes from village to village playing Ciprian Porumbescu’s Ciocirlia or Iosef Ivanovici’s waltz “The Waves of the Danube,” and he has charmed everybody in Vrancea County with his music. He plays his music passionately and, between two pieces, we ask him about his health. He is very fond of Dr. Mariana Cocirla—so are all of his neighbors. “She’s an angel. God sent her to us. She is always there when you need her and we all love her,” said Tudorita Cobzaru, 66, a mother of three and a former merry-go-round owner. Mita Grosu, 66, also praises the doctor, “I’ve been making bricks by the lake for 45 years and sell them at a price of three-four lei just to scrape by. I’ve been sick many times, but the doctor took good care of me. I’m grateful to her and I always pray for her.”

Prison Time: From Father to Son

Local council member Costel Nicu Dumitrache, “a liberal Rom” as he introduced himself, assures us that we are in the most peaceful neighborhood in the whole county. What he forgets to tell us is that scores of Roma living in this area have long criminal records for having illegally felled trees from the nearby forest. Scores of Roma men are known as “the number one enemies” of the Focsani Forest Administration. Poor and unemployed, most of these men steal wood as casually as if it were their job.

As the local Roma have virtually nothing to live on and the forest seems to provide a handy source of income, many people from Sihlea have been in trouble with law enforcement. When a father goes to jail for illegally felling trees, the son keeps on stealing wood so that he can send a package to his father in prison. “What else can we do if we don’t have anything to eat? Go down the road and attack people?” Vasile Trandafir, a young man from Sihlea wondered. Sometimes women are caught stealing wood too. Recently, Lacramioara Papuc, 23, was caught by the police with a large quantity of ash wood which she had stolen from the state forest. As the foresters say, for every tree that stands, another five trees are cut down. In the community, there are those who have been sentenced five times for the same crime. However, according to Mayor Stoica, there are some Roma who prefer to endure the freezing cold in their homes rather than resort to stealing.

“I Know All Their Dramas”

Dr. Cocirlea says the health problems the Roma people face are not at all different from the problems encountered in any rural community. Dr. Cocirlea noted:

I have been working in Sihlea for 16 years, I have entered all the houses, and I know their physical and spiritual problems and all their dramas... My job forces me to address all sorts of problems, not just medical ones, for a family doctor is also a confidant, a psychologist, and sometimes a police officer. I get along very well with them, I have always participated in the life of the community; that is why I managed to keep things under control. I have to admit that sometimes they need to be shown who is in charge, but one shouldn’t be too bossy because they immediately change their opinion of the doctor.

She is aware that the main reason why the Sihlea Roma community has no major health care problems to report is that along with their public assistance the people also have medical insurance. The doctor added:

Almost everybody has a guaranteed minimum income and is health insured. Under the circumstances, I can’t see any problem with the Roma. Even if some of them don’t have papers, I inoculate and treat them. I also have a community nurse who stays in permanent contact with them. In the last two months I have continually prescribed partially covered drugs. I also prescribed free drugs but only for seven or eight days, because the pharmacy runs out of such drugs within the first week of the month.

There is one serious problem in Sihlea, though, and that is nitrate contamination in the water sources. The Authority for Public Health recently found that, in addition to nitrite contamination, the wells have severely deteriorated and are unhealthy.

No Family Doctor for Bogza

Bogza village, which, in the 1970s used to be the most prosperous community in the county, was left without a family doctor a few years ago. Only one nurse works in the medical unit and Dr. Cocirlea comes to Bogza once a week. The population is aging. Several clerks in the mayors office said that over 70 percent of the people are older than 70, and last year there were 130 deaths and only 80 births. The Authority for Public Health has advertised the open doctor position but no one has applied. Dr. Cocirlea said:

There are about 1,000 people in Bogza, and one family doctor can’t survive with only 1,000 patients on record. Although the ideal situation would be to have about 1,500 patients, I have already more than 2,800 because I have to provide medical care to this village as well, in addition to Sihlea and Caiata. And I have to admit that I can barely keep it up. I have to go to so many places because I have small children, pregnant women and a TB patient.

The doctor from Sihlea also told us that many of the problems concerning the people’s health education might be solved by the nurses, but there are very few family doctors’ offices with more than one qualified nurse. “When I came to Sihlea, I found four nurses. Now I can consider myself lucky for having two nurses, husband and wife, to work with me. Thus, we can more effectively provide care at the patient’s residence,” Dr. Cocirlea said. One more achievement the doctor mentioned was the fact that she succeeded in persuading some very traditional Roma women to enter a family planning program, even if, in certain cases, contraception was applied without the husbands’ knowledge. “They are against using condoms, but, in general, they are open to contraception,” Dr. Cocirlea said.