WHERE YOUNG, OLD SHARE A BLEAK FUTURE

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

DATE: SUNDAY, January 10, 1993                   TAG: 9301070209
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Kathy Williams
DATELINE: HUSI                                LENGTH: Medium
WHERE YOUNG, OLD SHARE A BLEAK FUTURE
In this forgotten Moldavian village lies the future to which thousands of Romanians were once destined.
Two hundred adults and 120 children exist at the facility named Camin-Spital. All are waiting for the same thing. Death.
In one room a 45-year-old epileptic is assigned to care for two 13-year-olds - one deaf, the other a deaf mute. Mikhail and Florica, 17-year-old twins, sit on the floor staring at their twisted limbs. Two 9-year-old boys share a room with five men over the age of 60. One older man sits in his bed furiously combing his hair. Another lies face down, barely breathing. Another looks up, then quickly covers his head with the dirty green corduroy blanket that covers his bed.
In another room, an old woman leaning on a cane, knees bent from years of suffering, shuffles forward.
"Don't you have something special for my pain?" she pleads.
A years-old smell of urine blankets the hallways, choking those who dare to visit. A nearby balcony offers a quick escape for a gulp of fresh air.
There is little escape for those who live here. About 50 young children sit on wooden benches lining the cold hallway and stare blankly at an old black and white television mounted on a wall. Channel 1 offers a televised meeting of parliament.
"I guess they could play with their pillows," says a surprised director when asked about recreational activities. She sums up the programs offered: "You come here, you grow up here, you die here."
Thirty miles down the road, in the village of Giurcani, things are no better. Seventy-two handicapped kids live in the gray, cheerless facility.
An economic recession brings a steady stream of new children given up by their parents.
In one room, a young boy, frustrated and bored, picks up his white rail bed and crashes it to the floor. A nurse rushes to his side, grabs the youngster by the shoulders and slams her fist into his jaw. He lies crumpled on the floor as she threatens the other youngsters in the room.
The director, who has been here 18 years, is not surprised by the news and offers this prediction for the future:
"Without help from the West, they won't survive."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB