Hope for Romanian boy with short intestines

BUCHAREST, Romania -- Baby Andrei has confounded doctors just by being alive: The tiny boy with twig-thin limbs was given just days to live when he was born with almost no intestines -- eight months ago.

Now there's a glimmer of hope for another miracle.

People in Europe and the United States have started offering funds to help Andrei get a complicated intestine transplant in the United States, the Romanian pediatrician in charge of the baby's care said yesterday.

The offers came after an Associated Press story last week chronicled how Dr. Catalin Cirstoveanu, head of the neonatal unit at the Marie Curie children's hospital in Bucharest, flies babies abroad for lifesaving surgery to get around a culture of corruption in which many doctors won't operate unless they're bribed.

"Offers of help have come in, particularly from abroad, from a non-governmental organization," Cirstoveanu said.

The cost of the surgery goes into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, way out of the reach of Andrei's Gypsy parents, who live in eastern Romania. Average monthly salary is $460 in Romania.

The bribery culture in Romanian hospitals is so ingrained that nurses expect bribes just to change sheets. Surgeons can get hundreds of dollars and upward for an operation, while anesthetists get roughly a third of that.

Andrei, who still weighs less than an average newborn, has just 4 inches of intestine, compared with about three yards for other babies his age. Like them, he has started teething.

He has captured the hearts of his nurses, some of whom played the lottery to try to raise the money needed for surgery in the United States, which Cirstoveanu hopes the infant will now get for free.

Andrei's parents, who live hundreds of miles away, rarely visit. Nurses take turns cuddling the bony baby, who loves human contact and screws up his face and wails when put back in his incubator.

Andrei's alert gaze and keen interest in the world around him appear at odds with his frail, shrunken frame of just 6.16 pounds. He has grown less than 2.2 pounds since he was born premature on July 27 in the small town of Tecuci.

Without surgery, Cirstoveanu said, Andrei could expect to live for "one, two, three months." "He should have been dead by now, but he has another chance," Cirstoveanu said. "But he needs this operation soon. It is very urgent."