To help these people, we gave unemployed village women a three-month training course at the nursing school in Chisinau. Here, they were trained in geriatric care, nursing and basic medical knowledge. They are incredibly committed to caring for and washing the elderly and sick of the villages. They bring them medication and bandages, clean their houses, get water at the village well. Often, our nurses are the only contact person for the people they help. Of course, our nurses also help abandoned children whose parents work abroad. They arrange meetings between children and our social workers, who then help these children in social matters. Our pilot project aims at entrenching this social service in the Moldovan health care system, so that all elderly, sick and abandoned villagers experience similar assistance.
Health and social care in villages
We made this pilot project come to life in Moldova in cooperation with Robert Bosch Foundation in 2010 and are currently working towards its permanent integration into the Moldovan health and social sectors. We have trained 13 care workers and 3 project coordinators from 13 remote villages in Moldova to care for elderly, sick and often neglected people and children. Many old people in the villages are bedridden and lonely. They lie in their homes, forgotten, amidst incredible dirt and in catastrophic housing, without running water or heating. Many of them have chronic diseases and no family to take care of them because most family members have left the country in search for work.
