Dear Friends,

I promised you a brief of our meeting with our team in May….it would have been only partially, important data came later…

After more than one year of paperwork, patience and visits from state’s officers, FPM services were accredited for both directions: for the medical care services and for the specialized social services for palliative patients.

What means that?

It would be for the first time when the state (trough the medical insurance company) and the local community (the city hall) involves and supports (even partially) the costs of the care for the palliative patients in Cluj.

The medical insurance will cover (partially) the nurse home visits and the social department of the city hall will cover some costs of the social services per patient. For now we do not know how much it is, in terms of money, but it is a start for the state institutes of Cluj to involve in the care of the palliative patients.
We will have a better picture after a few month of running the activity with these changes. To cover all the costs of FPM’s activity we rely on our donors and supporters.

Our team is operational even we have some changes in its structure: Monica, our auxiliary has married and changed her domain of activity (not in the medical field) and Ruxandra, our social-worker turned to other job. We thank them for being with us; they were very good and devoted in their work; Alexandra, the nurse, is trying to find o job into the hospital but she will work with us part-time.
Claudiu and Crina, the other nurses, Simona, the coordinator-nurse and dr. Sorina, all of them part-time, cover the medical needs of 30-40 patients, on a daily basis.
For the social services we collaborate with a social-worker from another NGO till we have an interview to hire FPM’s own social-worker (in order to preserve the accreditation).

It is frustrating, for me as the manager and also for the members of the team, to have so many changes in the team’s structure; talking with colleagues from other NGOs, I found out that they have the same problems; we are happy to see that there are others willing to join us and help to continue (or to start over and over again) the work with the patients and their families…
In a small organization, as ours, at least some members of the team have to be skilled and willing to do more than their strict specialization (ex. for writing applications / documentations or for fund rising).
It is easy to tell: you should hire a program manager, a fund-raiser and even a manager…. in order to develop as an organization….but hard to do….
Seeing the numbers of the doctors and nurses who attended the training in palliative care I have to admit that the interest (in Cluj) for palliative care is quite low. Why? I cannot answer that question now….there are too many things to take into consideration…

At this moment I am happy to have a core-team, devoted and determined to go on and the acknowledgement from the state of our professionalism in our work.
I am more than aware that we couldn’t get at these point without God’s help and the love, patience and faithfulness of our friends and supporters.

We will see what the future has in store for us…our duty and responsibility is the person in need next to us….as for ideas and plans, we have plenty but sometimes we want more than we can or there is not the time, yet…