Home care

Home Care Program
With the establishment of the first Home Care Center in Lozenets district, Sofia with the support of PHARE ACCESS in 2003, the Bulgarian Red Cross introduced an integrated model for providing health care and social services in the home for the elderly, chronically ill and people with permanent disabilities. This model is based on the experience of the Swiss association "Spitex" and has been successfully adapted to the conditions in Bulgaria. As a result, a coherent system was established to assess the needs of patients, train staff, provide services and monitor their quality.

Home Care Centers
In the period 2005-2006, Home Care Centers were opened in Plovdiv, Blagoevgrad and Montana with the support of the Italian Red Cross, as well as in Lovech and Varna with the support of the German Red Cross. In 2010, two more Home Care Centers were opened in Smolyan and Dobrich, and the services are aimed at elderly people left alone as a result of migration of their relatives. These two centers were funded by the Unicredit Foundation in the period 2010-2012.
Within the project "Home care for independent and dignified life", currently implemented within the Bulgarian-Swiss Cooperation and Development Program / 2012-2015 /, in Vratsa district were opened four more Home Care Centers in Vratsa district, respectively in the town of Oryahovo, the town of Byala Slatina, the town of Oryahovo and the town of Krivodol with a total capacity of 400 people.

Nature of the Home Care Service
Through the Home Care services, the Bulgarian Red Cross strives to help the elderly, the chronically ill and people with permanent disabilities to overcome their health difficulties and to contribute to the improvement of their psychological, social and health status. The service includes both medical care / bandages, monitoring of the patient's physiological parameters, control over the correct and regular intake of medication / and social services that help patients cope with daily household activities / maintaining hygiene at home, body hygiene, eating, shopping, accompanying consultative examinations and laboratory tests or walks, etc./. The services are provided directly in the patient's home, after an individual assessment of the needs of each of them and in strict compliance with quality criteria developed under the Home Care Program with the help of Swiss experts in this field. The staff of the Home Care Centers also provides training to the family members of the patients on how to take care of their relatives. To each Home Care Center There are teams of volunteers who, after undergoing special training, are actively involved and support the activities of caring for the elderly.

Staff qualifications
Mandatory requirement for starting work in the centers "Home Care" is a successfully completed training course for home care. The Bulgarian Red Cross has a licensed vocational training program at NAVET "Social Services for Children and Adults with Chronic Diseases, Physical and Sensory Disabilities", including two modules: "Domestic Assistant, Nurse and Nurse" and "Social Assistant". The training programs are developed on the basis of the Swiss experience, are in line with European requirements and are adapted to the conditions in Bulgaria. The training is conducted by lecturers from the Faculty of Public Health of MU - Sofia and by members of the Bulgarian Association of Health Care Professionals, trained for the needs of these courses.