Doctors are running away from the national team

Two months ago, Dr. Ioachim Oană was fired from his position as national team doctor, following the negligence he's shown in treating Andreea Răducan. The gymnast tested positive for a banned substance and had her AA gold medal stripped away. Ever since, the national team has been working only with nurse Margareta Turcu, who is there for the gymnasts' training sessions. "We kept waiting for a doctor to be assigned to our team, but so far nothing happened. The biggest problem would be the girls that are left behind, about 14 of them, not the ones who are going to competitions [with the team nurse]. Not to mention, the team doctor is the person who takes care of all the problems that surface, flu, colds, but he's also in charge of choosing the gymnasts' meals, rehab treatments, and he oversees the activities of all the medical personnel. In order to take care of any major problems that arise, we send gymnasts to the Sport Medicine Institute in Bucharest with the team nurse, so the gymnasts left behind are totally unsupervised," said head coach Octavian Belu. He is happy none of his gymnasts suffered any serious injuries in the past two months.

Ioan Drăgan, director of the Romanian Sports Medical Institute has been trying to convince one of the doctors who work at the Institute to move to Deva for more than a month. "You have to understand where [the doctors] are coming from, because they don't want to leave their family behind to move some other place all by themselves. There no fixed contracts, since Dr. Oana has been doing this as a sort of volunteer job, so no one is rushing in. Besides, whoever moves there, should care about the gymnasts, not treat them as patients and nothing else," he adds. He thinks he found a temporary solution, in Dr. Cornelia Ionescu, sports medicine specialist, who has one year left until retirement, and she is inclined to accept the Deva position. "The gymnasts need a doctor, and she's be suited for the job. She worked with the soccer, handball and swimming teams before, so she has experience. Besides, I think she is better at her job than Oana was because sports medicine is her specialty," concluded Ioan Drăgan. Should Dr. Ionescu refuse the position, national coaches plan to start interviewing people for the job starting early next year.

RGF president, Nicolae Vieru, thinks advertising the opening is the only way to go. "I asked professor Drăgan to recommend someone. I still think we need to advertise the opening, but it should be filled by someone who likes gymnastics. In Deva, there is strong support for Dr. Oana, so our gymnasts were treated less than courteously by some doctors when they went out to get regular check-ups. So, I'm not sure naming a doctor from Deva would work, but we'll take care of the problem after the holidays," said Vieru.

Meanwhile, Belu was interviewed by Italian TV station RAI Uno at Deva. They are doing a documentary about Romania. "I found out they are visiting monasteries, [Danube's] Delta, and national monuments, in general, so I should feel honored I am placed in the same category. I even joked with them, saying the national team should be protected by UNESCO," said Belu.

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