The service consists of offering treatments at the home of children and adolescents with serious chronic diseases, cancer or other rare diseases, by teams of 1-3 professionals with training in healthcare who pay home visits.

At the children's home, nurses monitor and assess the children's condition, their clinical and biological parameters, and provide palliative care. The activity is carried out under the coordination of the attending physicians from the pediatric onco-hematology and rheumatology department of the Constanța County Hospital.

Home visits and the time available for them allow to solve several issues at the same time, compared to hospital treatment, where doctors do not have time to deal in depth with all the aspects of the disease. At home, the child is treated in his familiar environment, in a favorable atmosphere, compared to that in the hospital which can be stressful.

During the visits, the teams deal with the training of the guardians and their monitoring for the specific maneuvers of caring for the child who has a serious chronic illness, including the one in the terminal phase. Free medical consultations are also provided at home and by phone, for issues that emerge in-between cures.

The frequency of visits is determined by the attending physician according to the needs of the children. For children who are during the cures or are in the terminal phase, the team pay visits 3-4 times a week. In the case of families where the parents do better and they know how to manage the situation, the team goes on a monitoring visit once a year, when the children need a clinical consultation. If he/she is not found in good condition, the child is brought to the hospital for admission.

As this service is provided at home, it is also a help for families who have extremely low incomes and cannot afford the costs of going to the hospital – situations that can have significant repercussions on the quality of life and chances of recovery of the child. The service also helps to avoid extended hospitalization periods, during which the child is separated from the family for long periods.

BENEFICIARY’S VOICE

“I let them know when the tests should be performed and that day they come to collect blood from my child. He does the tests at home with pleasure, it's more OK than at the hospital. We don't have a car to get around, we should go by public transportation and it's not good during this period. After the surgeries, the child needed blood collection every two days and a team from the association came, they were collecting blood, they were making bandages, and then they were leaving and they were coming back every two days. When we needed a special treatment that we could not find at the pharmacies in our area, they passed and left us a part of the treatment.” (Parent of a beneficiary child)

COLLABORATOR’S VOICE

“These children have been in the hospital for months […] through this service, we don't take them out of their environment, we don't take them out on the roads with the maxi-taxi – they don't feel well, they start vomiting, and the risk of infections is high. Psychologically speaking, they do not even want to go to the hospital anymore. We understand them and that is why we go to them.” (Doctor at the Emergency County Clinical Hospital “Sf. Andrei” Constanța – Department of Onco-Hematology and Pediatric Rheumatology)

During the pandemic, the activity is heavy and more expensive due to the protective equipment and materials, but it continues at the same pace, with some of the consultations done online.

“When the pandemic came, all the international forums recommended that these children stay at home and we realized that we needed to further develop this capacity.” (Representative of “Daruiește Aripi” Association)