May 12, 2021
News
The access to health and social care is very limited for many people in Moldova. For several years, Caritas Czech Republic has been focusing on improving access and quality of services in this area, and through opening several home care centres, we have been successful. One of them is Estera in Chisinau which offers social and health care to 1 200 elderly and to people who need assistance. We are also establishing new profession in Moldova – a professional carer.
Unsuitable conditions
Many people in Moldova live in difficult and unsuitable conditions. It is not unusual not to have access to running water, electricity, or gas in their homes, so the temperatures in their households often stays around zero degrees throughout winter. Providing social care in such conditions is very complicated. We have, therefore, in cooperation with our partner organisation Homecare opened a centre, where all the services are concentrated. This is how Estera came about.
“We had been providing home care services for 10 years without having a base. The problem was that many people we cared for have no suitable conditions for receiving such care in their homes. Not even basic things like washing,” explains the director of Homecare Tamara Adasan. “In 2019 we came up with an idea of creating a centre where all the social care services would concentrate,” she adds. Today, employees drive clients from their homes to Estera where they receive adequate care.
Physiotherapy and church
Estera focuses on providing care to the elderly and to people in a need of assistance as well as those living alone. The services vary from physiotherapy, long term therapy, assistance with daily routines as well as providing company. Carers and nurses offer specialised health care, but also walk their clients to the shops, for a walk, or they cook together. A trip to the church is also nothing unusual. “We wash them, we comb their hair, shave the men. We wash their clothes. And people are grateful,” says a nurse Iulia Pinzari.
Hands on and theory
There is no such profession as a carer in Moldova. Caritas Czech Republic is cooperating with the government to change this, we are also working on standards for this new profession. To be able to raise the quality of care already now, Estera provides not only hands on care, but also runs workshops on how to care for the people who need assistance. The participants are recruited from future Estera volunteers, or family members who want to be able to at least partially care for their relatives. Volunteering is a crucial part of social care in Moldova, as it is in other developing countries. That is why Caritas Czech Republic focuses on volunteering in all the countries where we work.
Thanks to the support from the Czech government, we have been able to offer home care to 1 200 elderly, lonely, sick, or disabled people in Moldova.
