[The following is in regards to the disastrous social and economic policies of Nicolae Ceaușescu, President of Romania, and Elena Ceaușescu, his wife.]
Tragically the [forced] population boom and food shortages weren’t the only catastrophes that the long-suffering Romanians had to face, for a further disaster began to loom on the horizon.
Orphanages began springing up throughout the country, for as the birth rates rose and the food decreased, families were no longer able to support their offspring. Another incentive compounded this horrendous situation: money.
Nicolae Ceausescu began offering financial rewards to all parents who off-loaded their children on to state-run institutions in the hope that when the youngsters reached adulthood, they could form a Romanian Workers’ Army. Naturally the orphanages weren’t luxurious; they weren’t even basic.
Designed like factories and staffed by the minimum number of nurses required to keep things operational, the children were treated worse than animals. No mental stimulation was given them, no love, no education, no medical care, no physical activity and, worst of all, there was little if any food to go round. As a result, those children who survived grew up severely impaired, either physically or mentally. Worse still, in later years it was also discovered that the majority of them were suffering from AIDS. Doctors, who had for years been prevented from keeping up with the advances within the medical community, had misguidedly thought blood transfusions might help the children regain their health. Tragically, the opposite occurred. In addition to the doctors’ ignorance, Ceausescu and his ‘scientist’ wife, believing AIDS to be nothing more than a disease of the ‘decadent West’, had forbidden the testing of blood.
Source:
Klein, Shelley. “Elena Ceausescu.” The Most Evil Women in History. Barnes & Noble Books, 2003. 96-7. Print.
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