This July was hot: we gave out a record number of glasses – 23 pairs, and we dressed a record number of wounds – 96. We created useful how-to cards about helping homeless people, if you ever meet them and want to help. And we’ve done lots and lots more!
Mobile clinic
We went out 27 times to 38 spots, where homeless people can get food and shelter, and we assisted 179 patients 278 times. We dressed 83 wounds, and we had to call an ambulance once.
Charity Hospital is the winner of the international #МЫВМЕСТЕ (#WeAreTogether) award, and that money “fuels” our Mobile clinic.
Accessible communications
Thanks to our joint project with Club Kinoniya, our patients got to use phones for 77 minutes this month.
Medical assistance in shelters
We visited Malta’s shelter 9 times, we examined 16 patients 32 times in total. Dressed 13 wounds. Ambulance was called once.
Glasses
We gave out 23 pairs of glasses. We also found a way to send our patients to an optometrist for free, and 3 people got their eyes checked.
Tests
1 homeless person with symptoms of cold got an express test for COVID-19 antigens, and the result was negative. We also tested 32 patients for HIV, tested 49 patients for hepatitis B and hepatitis C, tested 27 people for syphilis, and we tested 15 patients for blood sugar level.
Medico-social support
Charity Hospital’s staff and volunteers helped patients get help:
- 7 people got dental help
- 1 person got help in a trauma center
- 8 people got a chance to consult with specialists in state clinics
- 1 person got registered at a women’s consultation
- 1 person got a consultation in a dermatology clinic
- 1 person got psychiatric help
- 1 person got their ID restored (with assistance from Kinoniya)
- 10 people got their hair cut
- 3 patients got remote consultations
- SepaRight waste collection
We were at 8 SepaRight waste collection spots this month, where people donated medicines to us.
Sharing experience
Eugenia Kharchenko released an episode of her podcast “Rich Doctor”, where she talked with Charity Hospital’s director Sergey Ievkov. They discussed street medicine and the Hospital, volunteering, burnout, and how to realize yourself in charity. If you want to hear the story about how a lone enthusiastic doctor with a bag of medicine created a non-profit charity organization (which keeps getting bigger) with employees and volunteers, you can listen to this podcast here.
Sergey Ievkov recorded a webinar about gaining access to confidential medical information. Anyone (!), who works with the homeless or helps other different groups of people get medical help, can do this, and you can learn more about that here.
On July 18th, Charity Hospital’s doctor Nika Bulavinova gave a lecture on helping homeless people. The Library of growth and career hosted this talk, and we made a post with useful how-to cards based on it.
Interactions with the government
Our medico-social center for homeless people is coming along nicely: we’ve continued to gather letters of support for this project from state healthcare institutions, healthcare committees and deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg.
We’ve continued to discuss using certain spaces for our medico-social center rent-free with the Committee of property relations. We expect a final decision on this matter in late August.
Also, this July:
We won a Timchenko foundation grant, “Inner circle”. This money will be used to improve our Mobile clinic and help homeless people of Saint Petersburg.
Thanks to this grant, our doctors and volunteers will go through additional training, which includes courses on anti-aging medicine, geriatrics, clinical psychology in gerontology, and on basics of long-term care. We also bought folding chairs, so that patients of our Mobile Clinic can rest a bit while they’re waiting in line. Additionally, we purchased a good hair clipper and accessories, so now our patients can get their hair cut when they come in for a check-up.
On July 16th and 17th, Charity Hospital participated in the (NON)Conference – an educational event for medical specialists: https://vk.com/doctodoc
You can support us in any convenient way here.
Ph: Vitaly Kurdeko
