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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 10, 1993                   TAG: 9301070134
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Kathy Williams/Landmark News Service
DATELINE: ORADEA                                LENGTH: Medium

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A WISH FOR LASTING GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE

Dr. Ioan Munea pulls the fluorescent orange bathrobe tightly over his blood-spattered white uniform, shivering in the operating room where he performs about 12 abdominal surgeries a day.

Heat is a precious commodity here. And medicine. And equipment. And knowledge.

Munea has to be coaxed to show visitors the operating rooms in the hospital with 700 patients. It's too dirty and there is nothing he can do to fix it, he explains.

There is no light table, so an X-ray is taped to a window. At night, reading X-rays is not possible. Disposable syringes and gloves are used again and again because there will be no others. Tiny pools of blood dot the floor in one operating room. Dirty uniforms wait to be cleaned in another, but a nurse says there is no disinfectant.

Munea, who makes $60 a month, is a specialist who could leave Romania and make much more money in another country.

But he chooses to stay. If everyone who could make a difference in Romania left, he says, there would be no hope.

"It is something in the heart. It's very difficult for you to understand."

An American visitor proposes bringing a team of doctors to the hospital for two weeks in the spring. He asks Munea to line up patients to benefit from the free surgery.

But Munea has a better idea, one that will last.

"You bring the doctors, but they teach us how to do the surgery," he proposes. "That is what will help Romania."

And equipment. They could use equipment.

"Would you like a new operating table?" the American asks.

"You ask a hungry man if he would like a piece of bread," Munea replies.

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