SMILES
MEDICAL PROJECT
Smiles Medical Team:
Dr Claudia Micula and Practice Nurse Dana Zaharia
Introduction
The
medical needs in Bihor County are pressing many of the
citizens, including some of our
beneficiaries who suffer from lack of care, services or
medication. In order to have access to medical services, every person
needs to be covered by the state insurance, otherwise they will benefit
only from emergency medical services, and they will pay for everything
else (even hospitalisation, with large sums of money).
Even if people are enrolled to a
family
doctor and pay the insurance, the state won’t cover every service /
medication need and many times they seek payment from peoples who are in
the most difficult or delicate situations. As a paradox, the system is
very restrictive and demanding with institutions and specialists willing
to help. This is why the private “social-medical” services are very few,
leaving a big gap in societies needs.
The Smiles Foundation can’t get to every single person in a bad medical
condition from the county, but we can do something for those we know, to
relieve some of their pain and to improve their life.
Overview
The Smiles Medical Project beneficiaries are:
Beneficiaries from the “Family Care” Project.
Beneficiaries from the Tileagd Community Complex
(School, Nursery, Gypsy Community).
Beneficiaries from other Smiles projects
(CCC, Gepiu & Emergency Housing) – when needed.
Other occasional & potential beneficiaries would be homeless
beneficiaries and other beneficiaries, not yet officially in one of
our projects, but facing a crisis).
We operate from two medical “headquarters”:
Cihei Medical Facility
(operating as a “medical home care system”, also to the homeless).
The medical facilities in Tileagd, delivering services for the school,
the nursery and the Tileagd Community.
Activities
We have medical files for each beneficiary. Presently, we have 163
people monitored, 90 children and 73 adults. Some of these beneficiaries
suffer from chronic diseases and receive support regularly, while others
will come to us only when needed. Claudia and Dana will go on a
regularly basis to some very serious cases, offering treatment, buying
the medicines, or offering medical counselling.
Where we can or where it’s needed, we mediate between the beneficiary
and other institutions. We often collaborate with medical institutions
(State clinics & hospitals) in order to solve some of the issues facing
our beneficiaries. Sometimes we need to do this during our homeless
program or when the people from different programs need specialised
medical attention. We are well received and we anticipate that in the
future we will expand our network of partners.
In the school we have programmes of hygiene lessons to the children, in
an accessible pleasant way. In the “Princess Club” (part of the Tileagd
Church programme) or in the program designed for 6 to 8 year old
children we’ve introduced this type of education, and we are very
pleased with the results. The children are open to discussion, they ask
questions and are rewarded for putting in practice what they’ve learned.
In collaboration with Clara, the School Director, we are thinking to
introduce ‘Health & Hygiene Education’ as fixed curricula for everybody,
to assure that all of our children know a minimum of health education.
During our general examinations we consistently find cases of head lice.
Almost every month we need to treat the children from the school and
nursery against lice, and we are pleased to report that we’ve received
urgently needed supplies for this treatment in the last Container
shipment. We also know many of our beneficiaries face an intestinal
worms problem, so we’ve offered treatment for that too. Unfortunately,
even if the problem is minimised, we see that this is a constant
concern, especially for children coming from the Gypsy community or for
our homeless beneficiaries.
We are planning to have an informative program in the community, based
on a plan to cover the entire population there. We will go from house to
house, speaking with everyone, disinfecting the house, offering
treatment against lice, scab or intestinal worms and helping with advice
on cleaning the house where necessary.
Statistics for the Smiles Medical Project:
120 people receive medicine since January
7 people were treated in other medical facilities, after we
facilitated the access
43 people suffering chronic diseases or serious issues
(burns, accidents) were treated at home
55 people received vitamins
60 people were de-parasitised every month
2 people were treated against scab.
Needs:
Many of the basic needs were covered by the last Container shipment and
we hope that will keep coming in the future. There are some medicines
that can only be prescribed and it is not safe or allowed to be shipped.
We have to purchase these medicines for our beneficiaries and this can
only be done as the financial support for our Medical work continues to
be received.
Lice shampoo is very expensive
in
Romania but if we can get more sent to us it would be very good to have
available for regular use. (Many of the beneficiaries, after treatment,
get contact with others that are infected.)
We also urgently need effervescent vitamins. Most of the children are in
need of vitamins and will be more open to a good drinking solution then
they are with pills.
Conclusion
The quality of the delivered services and the permanent orientation to
lasting results, is very dependant on the continuing support we receive
from donors around the world.
We hope that through our presence we will contribute to the improvement
of the quality of life for some of those who suffer from medical
conditions. We want to thank all of those who help us achieving this, to
all of our partners and friends who support this project.
Together we will contribute the work of ‘Making Smiles in Romania’.
Thank You
IF I
WAS SICK.......OR UNEMPLOYED.....WOULD YOU HELP ME?
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UK
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Contribute to the annual costs of a
Social Assistant -
£7,784 each |
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Contribute to the annual costs of a
Doctor or Social/Medic - £8,400
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Contribute to the annual costs of
Prescription Medicine. - £3,600 |
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US
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Contribute to the annual costs of a
Social Assistant -
$14,000 each |
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Contribute to the annual costs of a
Doctor or Social/Medic - $15,120 |
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Contribute to the annual costs of
Prescription Medicine - $6,480 |
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