European Union supports the access to health services for every child through Home Visiting project

Care and support in every child’s home: the Republic of Moldova and Romania through CCF Moldova and Star of Hope Romania collaborate in the cross-border project to improve medical services for children up to three years old and pregnant women in the last trimester. Medical specialists from four districts of the Republic of Moldova and three counties in Romania provided support to approximately 1,700 beneficiaries in the “Access to health services for each child through home visits” project.

Within the project, specialists from Bălți, Drochia, Dondușeni and Glodeni districts have improved their skills in the field of early identification of developmental disorders, disabilities and other health problems. The nurses received emergency medical bags, equipped with an electronic hand scale, a pediometer, a textile bag to put the child at the time of weighing and a centimeter ribbon to measure the circumference of the skull. The equipment is used in the context of home visits for the supervision of the healthy child.

“These bags are very useful. Until now, we used what we found in the family, at the parents. Now we have everything that we need in one bag and it is easy to use. Our visits have become straightforward and besides all this, there is a bag that you can take with you anywhere. We can also put other things we need here. It is very comfortable,” said Inna Nastas, nurse at the Family Doctor’s Center in Tîrnova.

Parents say that these visits and the new equipment used by the nurses give them valuable time to spend with the child because they do not have to walk to the Family Doctor’s Center and wait their turn for consultation.

In addition, on 21-22 July, 14 representatives of local public authorities, NGOs, community nurses from Iași, Vaslui and Botoșani counties and the project team from Star of Hope Romania, exchanged experience with specialists in the social and medical sector from Glodeni and Bălți, having also visited the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection. During the meeting, the participants shared their experience in Romania and the Republic of Moldova in the field of national programs for home visits of young children and community-based rehabilitation in order to ensure their well- being.

Within the project, a brochure was developed for parents and future parents that provides the mos t important information they need during pregnancy and the first years of the child’s life. The brochures, 2,000 copies, were distributed to parents, beneficiaries of the project in the four districts of the Republic of Moldova and the three counties of Romania. The project team channelled their efforts to reach a wider audience by producing 24 TV shows. The information was broadcasted via local TV stations in the Republic of Moldova and Romania in areas with the largest audience where the project was implemented.

The “Access to health services for every child through home visits” cross-border project is implemented by CCF Moldova in partnership with Star of Hope Romania Foundation and funded by the European Union through the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI), through the Joint Operational Program Romania-Republic of Moldova 2014-2020 between 1 April 2020 – 30 September 2021.

For additional information about CCF Moldova, access the link https://ccfmoldova.org/