Emanuel Hospice: How it all began 25 years ago by Marinela Rotariu, CEO Emanuel Hospice
Looking back in time 25 years, to February 1996. Emanuel Hospice was not yet registered as an organisation. We did not have a building, staff, or payroll. What we did have was a special calling from God and the insatiable conviction that we should do whatever was necessary to assist the cancer patients that had been discharged from the hospital oncology department. The oncology doctors had sent them home to die. They had been told, “There is nothing more we can do for you. Your condition is beyond the scope of medical science.”
"We just had a stethoscope, a bag of medical supplies…and a list of about thirty terminal cancer patients" There we were, two enthusiastic young women; one a medical intern and the other a nurse with six years of experience at the County Hospital working with haematology patients. We just had a stethoscope, a bag of medical supplies—syringes, needles, bandages—and a list of about thirty terminal cancer patients. We also had God’s assurance that this was what He wanted us to do with our lives. We established a meeting place at the tram station from which we travelled by public transportation to the patients' homes (once we were able to establish the routes we could take to most efficiently get to the places we needed to be each day). 4
