29 March 2021
Article from January 2021 edition of INPractice
For Adelaide clinical nurse Claudia Cristea, COVID-19 brought back some not-so-fond memories of her childhood growing up in then communist Romania.
“Talking about COVID, that reminded me of my 13-year-old self lining up for toilet paper for hours and hours and hours. In the snow,’’ says this year’s winner of the ANMF (SA Branch) Award for Activism in the Workplace.
For most of Ms Cristea’s childhood Romania was under the iron grip of ruthless dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who declared himself a god and ruled the country from 1965 until his execution on Christmas Day, 1989.
Claudia can recall the last days of the 1989 people power revolution, when Ceausescu’s secret police, The Securitate, began systematically and randomly slaughtering civilians, even children, in their own homes. She recalls her 16-year-old self and her parents terrified and taking refuge in their basement while a massacre in the streets unfolded around them.
“We all supported the revolution and spent day and nights on the streets protesting together with everyone else, young and old. But when the shooting started, we had to barricade in our home,’’ Ms Cristea said.
“There was a lot of shooting, we just stayed inside our house. “We had security police (The Securitate) in our backyard and front yard with their guns and we didn’t move, didn’t put a light on, didn’t make a sound.
“We locked ourselves in the basement and we didn’t move for three days, with the lights off, no food, no nothing, because we were scared if they saw some movement they will come and shoot us. Our house, it had holes in the walls, in the windows, and everywhere on the outside.
“People went into churches to feel safe, and they (the secret police) went there and killed them in the churches. Ceausescu was against church and religion. He never allowed us to go to church and have faith. He wanted to destroy all churches in Romania.’’
Growing up in this prison-like environment of fear, poverty, misery and total lack of freedom only fuelled Claudia’s desire for social justice.
Since migrating to Australia at age 20 with her Romanian husband she has passionately embraced the union cause - to fight for and protect the rights and conditions of her fellow colleagues. In Romania there were no unions, there were no rights, only near-slavery, abject working conditions and pitiful pay. Complaining could get you killed.
“You couldn’t speak up. I was 16 when everything started to turn ugly and the revolution came. It was a huge impact on my life and it was very important to realise how good it is to actually have a voice and speak up and fight for your rights,’’ Ms Cristea says.
Now a WSR at the Queen Elizabeth, Ms Cristea says Australians are “so lucky to have a union, they are so lucky to be protected. “My parents (factory workers) never felt protected. But here people are protected.
“They have a choice to become a member and how they don’t (become one), I don’t understand it. They’re just so lucky to live in such a rich and respectful country.’’
Ceausescu ’s downfall had its seeds in the billions of dollars of foreign debt he accrued through failed oil ventures during the 1970s. He succeeded in paying the debt off by exporting much of Romania’s agricultural and industrial production, thereby plunging his people deeper into poverty as extreme shortages in food, energy, medicines and other basic necessities became the new norm, fuelling civil unrest.
On Christmas Day, 1989,the overthrown tyrant and his wife Elena were convicted by a special military tribunal on charges of economic sabotage and genocide and executed by a firing squad.
For Ms Cristea, life under the dictator was “very simple”. “Everyone had the same sort of life pattern, everyone lived in apartments, everyone wore the same clothing. You couldn’t wear blue jeans, that was considered Western.
“Children had to wear the red (communist) scarf. They had to be communism pioneers (advocates).
“You had only two hours of TV, 8pm to 10pm, and even that, it was just about Ceausescu and his congress. Only on weekends we had a little bit more TV in the afternoon (including, strangely enough, Western Tom and Jerry cartoons).
“Nobody was allowed to watch videos or DVDs, no colour TVs, not allowed to leave the country to go and work anywhere else, unless you had special permission.
“Everything was on a ration. There were humungous queues. You had to queue up for milk from 4 o’clock in the morning, or 2 o’clock in the morning for meat. And even that was portioned, the bread was portioned.
“People would queue up while the shop was still empty, just to see what the truck will bring that day (that’s if the delivery would actually happen). Most of the times the products will run out by the time your turn will come to buy some.’’
Ms Cristea grew up in the city of Brasov in Romania’s mountainous Transylvania region, famed for 15th Century ruler Vlad the Impaler, known as Vlad Dracula, who is widely believed to have inspired the fictitious blood-sucking villain.
Romania’s real-life villain, Ceausescu, was a dominant presence during her school days. “Every classroom had a picture frame with his face on the wall above the blackboard. We had to stand up every morning when the teacher came in and sing, it was a special song that Ceausescu wanted us to sing (in praise of him) in every class every morning,’’ Ms Cristea says.
“We grew up in fear, my parents always used to say ‘do not talk, do not say anything about Ceausescu, nothing bad about him’. He had his security, his secret police, and they will take you away.
“If you go and speak up, you will disappear basically. They will just take you and put you in prison or ‘stuff you up’ mentally and release you back in the community. At that stage you would be talking by yourself with no sense.
“We were always in fear, ‘don’t say anything, go to school and come back home’. Even if you don’t like something you have to put up with it and don’t say anything.
“There was no way you would be able to speak up because they would take you and abuse you and beat you up.
“I remember when the revolution came in Brasov just before the one in Bucharest. I was collecting the eggs and when I got out of the shop all these people in the streets, I was so scared, I was only 16. I thought ‘what is going on?’. By the time I got home I broke all the eggs.
“That’s how it started. Everyone just kept coming out to fight for their rights.’’
After finishing school, Ms Cristea became a PE teacher, before leaving the country with her husband and resettling in Adelaide. She says her two daughters, born and raised here, are “shocked” by her stories about growing up in Romania.
“We just wanted a better life and better opportunities, study and job opportunities mainly. I just came out of a communist regime, big recession, big change, there wasn’t much opportunity there,’’ she says.
“After the revolution, things didn’t get instantly good. You can just imagine the chaos and it was like a no-man’s land. A lot of people from security, the army, trying to become president.
“Even now (as a democracy) it’s hard to live there. Huge inflation, there are still people who have a very small wage. People with money rule the country basically.
“I came to Australia in ’94 and my parents came 11 years later. I managed to bring them here, had to pay quite a lot of money for their visa. Unfortunately, Dad passed away but Mum is still here.
“I’ve been back twice. It’s a beautiful country, it’s gorgeous. It’s got the mountains, the sea, the Danube (river), all that,’’ Ms Cristea says.
“But the mentality and the inflation, there’s not much stability. It will be a long time before it becomes a civilised country with fairness and opportunity.
“There’s no sort of middle class, it’s like poor and rich.’’
Ms Cristea says she was “very surprised” to win the ANMF activism award.
Her nominee wrote that she “leads by example, to an extremely high standard. Expects herself and others to carry out clinical care and coordination to a high level. Initiates new ideas and is always looking for ways to improve workplace conditions and obtain safety in the workplace. Identifies problems. However, also researches and looks for solutions”.
“I did not expect the award,’’ Ms Cristea says. “Not at all, because there’s a lot of nurses out there, they fight for their colleagues and for their nurse ratio and the rights of the patients. I was very, very happy about it.
“If we didn’t have a union who would fight for our EBA and nurse ratio? Like in Romania, you have one nurse to 60 people.
“In ED, where I am, the nurse ratio is 1 to 3. That’s very good.
“In hospitals we are very lucky to have the nurse ratio and to be able to speak about our EBA and retain it.
“Otherwise how would you deliver the safe, quality nursing care that we deliver here?’’.
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here to read the January 2021 edition of INPractice.