Stories of helping Ms. Maria: How timely medical care saves lives

During a visit to 95-year-old Maria and the provision of home care services, a social worker and nurse from One Care saw that the woman needed immediate inpatient treatment. She had serious problemswith her legs and could barely walk, but refused to be hospitalized.

Valentina Shram, a social worker from the Poltava team of One Care says that the most important part was psychological work—explaining why treatment was vital, what the consequences would be if she refused it, and encouraging her.

The Poltava team of One Care passed on information about the woman to the mobile medical team of the Ukrainian-Swiss project “Act for Health.” The mobile medical team includes a doctor and a psychologist, who also visited Maria, provided the necessary medical and psychological assistance, and finally convinced her to be admitted to the hospital for inpatient treatment.

Now Maria feels much better: she can move around on her own, serious health consequences have been avoided, and her leg problems bother her much less.

We thank our teams for their compassion and help to people who need it so much.

One Care teams provide integrated medical and social services, including home care, to vulnerable groups in four oblasts: Rivne, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Poltava. Two One Care mobile teams in each oblast have already provided services to over 4,000 clients.