Voila Psychiatric Hospital is situated in Prahova County, Câmpina City. It is located in a beautiful natural setting, in the Voila region of the Câmpina city, a semi-mountainous area (700 meters altitude). It is surrounded by forests and orchards, surfacing about 25 acres. It is a hospital structured on separate wards, the medical activity and the related activities taking place in 23 different buildings.
It was established on the 1st of March 1971 by the psychiatrist Petre Valeriu, who thus became the first director of the Hospital – having a capacity of 170 beds, initially running in the Voila Castle (a former hunting castle built between 1968 and 1871 and rehabilitated over time).
After several changes in the structure of the hospital, its capacity has been extended: in 1977 – 450 beds, in 1982 – 480 beds, between 1983 and 2009: 570-565 beds, in 2010 – 510 beds.
For the time being, it has a capacity of 510 beds, being the third largest psychiatric hospital in Romania, structured in 7 Psychiatric Wards for Adults, totalling 430 beds, out of which 285 beds for the acutely ill, and 145 seats for the chronically ill; 2 Wards for Paediatric Psychiatry, totalling 80 beds. In its structure it also has the Outpatient Clinic, specialised in psychiatry and paediatric psychiatry, the Occupational Therapies and Ergotherapy Ward, the Medical Recovery and Balneophysiotherapy Clinic and Laboratory, the Pharmacy, the Laboratory.
There are 301 employees out of whom 29 psychiatrists, 130 medical nurses, 80 orderlies and caretakers, but also other higher education medical personnel, technical, economical and socio-administrative personnel, and maintenance workers.
In 1986, once with the establishment of the 3rd Ward of the Hospital (with a capacity of 570 beds back then), several workshops for the mentally ill have operated within this ward, under the guidance of employees having different specializations (tailors, carpenters, etcetera). The hospitalized patients took part in occupational therapies, therapies that were intended to rehabilitate them and occupy their spare time spent inside the hospital. Therefore, within this ward, coordinated back then by Doctor Tranulis Adrian, there were tapestry, sweatshop, handicraft and painting workshops.
All the resulting items – tapestries, paintings or any other handicraft works – were put to sale, but most of them were kept in the workshop, being later used to decorate the hospital rooms.
The activity of these workshops was discontinued soon after 1989.
Currently, within the hospital, there is a Department for Occupational Therapies and Ergotherapy, staffed with two medical nurses and one ergotherapy instructor, whose activity gradually grows beginning with 2010.
Thus, we conduct music therapy, bibliotherapy, cinema therapy, physical activities and sport therapy, self-catering activities, ergotherapy (in the vegetables greenhouses within the hospital). For the hospitalized patients, all the activities comply with a centralized system, following the recommendation of the treating physician.
The existence of this Department and its developing is part of the hospital’s management plan that promotes the biopsychosocial approach of the mentally ill by applying psychosocial rehabilitation principles, both for adults and children alike.
The existence of this tradition in this regard, and the benefits art therapy and other occupational therapies as well have on the favourable evolution of the psychiatric illness, determines us to further develop and encourage this type of activities within our hospital.
