Romanian Girl Arrives for Life-Saving Surgery

Thanks in large part to the efforts of two San Diego disaster relief volunteers, a 14-year-old Romanian girl is getting another chance at life.

Adina Kupa, who was scheduled to arrive in San Diego late Wednesday night, will be treated at UC San Diego Medical Center for a growth on her tongue that swells and impairs her breathing, said Karen Brookes, a spokeswoman for Southwest Medical Teams, a nonprofit agency based in San Diego that collects medical supplies, equipment and services for distribution to disaster areas.

“Without laser treatment, she would probably die,” Brookes said.

Adina and her mother, Silvia, are natives of Cluj, a city in the Transylvania region. They arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday aboard Yugoslav Airlines, which provided them with free transportation.

While Adina is being treated, she and her mother will live with the family of Ovidiu Talpos, a Romanian living in San Diego.

Talpos is a volunteer for Southwest Medical Teams, which arranged to bring the teen-ager to San Diego with his help and that of another volunteer, Dr. John Lasiter, the group’s medical director. The two traveled to Romania in January to deliver medical supplies and to assess the country’s medical needs after the new democratic government was installed.

While visiting the American Embassy in Bucharest, they encountered Silvia Kupa, who was pleading for help for her dying daughter. Lasiter and Talpos offered their assistance and helped arrange visas for the Kupas to come to the United States.

Brookes said Talpos told his wife, a physician at UCSD, about the situation and that the hospital agreed to perform the surgery for free.

Adina is the first person from an Eastern Bloc country to come to San Diego for medical treatment through Southwest Medical Teams’ efforts, but, in a tentative agreement with UCSD and Yugoslav Airlines, the group will attempt to make arrangements to bring other Romanians here, primarily for reconstructive surgery, Brookes said.

“Instead of sending people there, we will bring a few here,” she said. “They are 30 to 40 years behind us in medical technology. They need training in sterile procedures. The doctors there wear street clothes, and do not wear sterile gloves or use sterile instruments.”

Brookes said that, if everything works out with the Romanian government, more patients should arrive within the next three months. They will be placed with San Diego families, preferably ones that speak Romanian.