Romania was a signatory to the 1998 Poznan Declaration, and is a member of the Eastern and Central European Palliative Care Task Force (ECEPT). Dr Daniela Mosoiu, medical director at Hospice Casa Sperantei, is a Vice Chair of ECEPT. Palliative care health professionals, supported by ECEPT as well as other national and international organisations, have been active in developing national policies on palliative care, improving opioid availability, developing palliative care services, education and training, and increasing public awareness of the need for palliative care at the end of life.

The Romanian Association for the Development of Palliative Care was founded on 5th January 1992 at the Berceni Bucharest Hospital. An NGO comprising of physicians, nurses, families, priests, members of society, and volunteers, it focused on the education and training of medical teams, reporting on palliative care at medical and religious conferences and within the mass media, and introducing the subject into the teaching curriculum of nursing schools and specialist education.³⁶

The National Association for Palliative Care (ANIP) was established in 1998, with the aims of promoting the right of patients to palliative care; developing palliative care services on a national level; and creating an efficient body to lobby the national health authorities³⁷. Affiliated to the EAPC, the association produces a range of promotional material, publishes a newsletter, maintains a web page and organises the annual National Conference of Palliative Care and the National Lobby Conference for Palliative Care. Another national organisation, the Romanian Society for Palliatology and Thanatology, founded in 1999, is also a member of the EAPC.

Collaboration has been created between the Universities of Greenwich, Cardiff, and Cluj Napoca. Lecturers from the UK, USA, Canada and Holland teach at Casa Sperantei.

Since the late 1990s, the international organisation, Open Society Institute (OSI), has provided major funding towards the development of palliative care services in Eastern and Central Europe, including Romania. The OSI organises short training programmes and provides funding for attending seminars and conferences, and funds initiatives for the development of local service provision. With the inclusion of Romania in the European Union, it is hoped that the development of service provision will continue to be supported by EU funding. Other organisations include the Christian Agency for Social Action and Children in Distress, which provides funding and training for its hospices in Cernavoda, Bucharest and Curtea de Arges.