In March 2010, when they were returning from a clinic in Ukraine, they spent 16 hours on the road, on bad and snowy roads. "You could go at most 40-60 kilometers per hour so that the wheels would not jump. And as we went down this road, we let go of our imagination. And I said 'what would it be like to do what we saw in Ukraine in Romania?'" With this thought they returned to Alba Iulia. There, on that road full of potholes and snow, began the struggle of the Onac spouses to make their daughter and many other children better. 

The "plant" in the basement

They started the association with small steps. They were thinking of helping their little girl and some other children they knew in Alba Iulia. They imagined a micro-community and a small recovery center, because they already had their living room full of all kinds of appliances for Maria Beatrice. They had also found a therapist who came and worked with four or five children, they had also called a specialist from Hungary who spent about two weeks in Alba-Iulia. Because the therapies were long-lasting and it wasn't enough to bring someone two to three times a year, they even set out to try to put together that little center.

Also in 2010 they founded the Maria Beatrice association https://mariabeatrice.ro/. To gather a community around the subject and see if their idea had an echo in society, they organized a show to which they called well-known performers. It also mattered that they were teachers, and a lot of people in town knew them. And things moved. After the event was publicized and people understood what they wanted to do, people started calling them and asking them how they could help. "That's how things were related: from almost to near, from man to man," says Sebastian Onac. 

They also talked to local and county authorities and tried to identify a suitable space. And eventually they found one of about 500 square meters, in a basement of the nursing home in Alba Iulia, under the management of the Local Council. They entered into a partnership agreement and received the space in free use. They then renovated it with the help of volunteers, including students of their own. 

In 2012 they let go of the center, which still works today. They had "four and a half employees" and about five children who were receiving therapy, pretty much the same ones who came to their living room before. In the following years their number increased: at one time there were 25 children from Alba-Iulia, then they began to come from other places in the country. And even from outside Romania: they heard of them Romanians settled in Spain, France, Italy, Egypt or in the Nordic countries; they preferred to come to Alba-Iulia, because they had access to therapy at lower costs. In 2016, when they realized that the project was evolving and the need for activities and medical offices is increasing, they asked the City Council to put them into use the rest of the space in the basement, that is, another 500 square meters. 

Because the authorities hesitated, they thought of building a national pediatric center from scratch. They searched for a large enough plot of land and found one, eventually. And after they bought it came the decision of the local authorities to allow them to expand their current space. 

Now, the space in the basement has 1,000 square meters, in which 24 halls operate. "There's a whole plant there at the moment: there are 54 employees, about 80-100 children every day. Recovery doctors, physical medicine, balneology, pediatric neurology, nurses, therapists, physical therapists, speech therapists, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, sensory integration, therapy with puppies", says Iulian Onac. 

"The patient is the whole family"

The biggest problem in a center like this is to find the right people to work with the kids. Until 2016, at least, it was very difficult for them. Because in Alba-Iulia they could not find enough specialists, they brought therapists from Timisoara, Sibiu, Pitesti or Sighisoara. They realized that it would be impossible for them to grow like this, so they signed a partnership with the 1 Decembrie University of Alba Iulia. They became a practice center for the new physiotherapy and special motricity department there. Meanwhile, they have graduated for three generations, and many of them work at the center, having done practice there. Now it operates within the University and an occupational therapy ward, still very young. 

Several specialists from abroad supported them to develop a functional professional structure within the center, says Iulia Onac: they did working sessions, discussed cases, set common objectives of approach in child therapy. Before starting therapy, the child goes through 4-5 stages of evaluation, in order to find the most suitable solutions for him. The case of each child is discussed in specialized meetings, in order to set objectives. And they then work together to put a certain goal into practice. That's how the results come about. 

Throughout this therapeutic process, it focuses a lot on the comfort of the child, but also on that of the parents. Because they interact almost constantly with the mother, the children are much more sensitive to her emotional state: if she is upset or nervous, she immediately feels agitated, insecure and will not respond positively within the framework of therapy. If she's quiet, he too becomes more cooperative. 

"For us, the family is a partner," explains Sebastian Onac. "We have developed a lot through the know-how that these families who have walked all over the planet have brought us. We do not keep the family at the door, as is generally the case in the Romanian medical system. The family participates in therapy. If you integrate your family into therapy, you really get fantastic results. And starting from that, we build the concept that the patient is the whole family. Having all this experience of 10 years, all our motivation and our empathy for families like us, we are building another concept for Romania."

Through the programs it implements, the association wants to give hope to the family and keep it united around the child, in the conditions of the fantastic wear and tear that the disease brings. 

"There are no limits when you are at the limit"

Currently, the center has a waiting list that spans several months, and the time lost is hard to recover for these children. The age of the children who come to therapy has decreased a lot: following a program funded by Intesa SanPaolo Bank Italy and through partnerships with the municipalities in the children's areas of residence, they benefit from free evaluations. 

About 500 children are now supported by the association annually. They are all entitled to a chance. There are children with light paresis who go to school: it's about light forms that can start talking, walking, having a domestic motor skills, getting dressed, having independence, turning on their TV, fridge, etc. "I can't express to you the happiness of such a child, what it means for him to do six meters. No matter how many Olympics we have won, we will never have his happiness. And we take the pain: that's a very important thing," says Sebastian Onac.

At the national level, however, the needs are much greater than the current center can offer. For a premature baby — as thousands are born in Romania — the first six months of life are crucial to be able to provide a correct intervention and avoid serious, long-term illnesses. "The pressure on hospitals in Romania is very high, because infant mortality in Romania has a high threshold. And that's when the hospitals are making a special effort to get these kids out of the hospital. They are no longer interested in it: they took it out alive, they ticked it off. We try to take care of these families after."

The future center will allow complex and long-term interventions that will not leave parents aside. The construction, completed in red on a developed area of 4,700 square meters, will have two modules: one for therapy and the other for accommodation and meals. In the basement there will be three hydrotherapy pools, with fresh and salt water, and a channel for re-education of walking. Level 1 of the therapy body — which will have medical offices, therapy rooms, physical therapy, massage, therapy, physiotherapy, locker rooms, showers, pools — is "in the gray".