Caregivers’ Service at home

Our caregivers’ service comprises more than 60 sisters of charity. Those under our care are people who need help many hours a day, and at times, round the clock. They’re lonely old people, patients with incurable degenerative diseases, those after serious traumas.

In order to give proper round-the-clock care for bedridden patients at least 5 full-time nurses are required. The work is very hard both physically and emotionally, and demands not only high levels of professionalism, but also full commitment. At present, there are 20 full-time sisters of charity and 19 Orthodox nurses in the caregivers’ ‘Mercy’ service who work with kids in multi-children families.

Such a limited number of workers is barely enough to provide care and social help for about 40 patients at their homes, and also help bring up children in 40 multi-children families.

The Caregivers’ service is one of the few in Moscow which helps patients whose relatives can’t pay for a caregiver on a complete free-of-charge basis. At the moment, demand for sisters of charity exceeds its supply multiple times. Some 700 new requests are accepted by the services but, unfortunately, for the reasons mentioned above not many of them are granted.

In order to help as many people in need as reasonably possible, our caregivers’ service has formed a mobile team that teaches relatives caregivers’ basics. The sisters do not supervise the diseased through their whole illness but rather help their nearest and dearest provide due care at home by themselves. Some 7 to 10 patients are helped by our sisters monthly; they also assist in finding a caregiver or in providing due care.

In order to help the ‘Mercy’ service take good care of new patients, many more sisters of charity are needed. There’s an annual caregivers’ course for nurses at St Dimitry’s Training College for Sisters of Charity, which provides necessary certificates and employment.

Part of the service’s work is to ensure regular free-of-charge courses for Orthodox nurses within St Dimitry’s Training College for Sisters of Charity. The courses are run in order to teach its trainees fundamental knowledge of care and upbringing of children in multi-children families, with the view of later employment as a nurse.

Our Orthodox nurses help bring up some 200 children in more than 40 multi-children families.

The sisters’ wages are made up of private donations that ‘Mercy’ receives for caregivers’ service. Without them the service will have nothing to ensure its existence. That is why we are in constant need of our benefactors’ regular financial help.