Almshouse

Word from the past. Even Wikipedia story ends nineteenth century almshouses. In our country, there are almost none, less than forty. And one of them is unique. It is located ... in the ordinary Moscow apartment.
32 Photo © Sergey Mukhammedov





In the 1st city hospital grandmother lived Vera. That was living. Prescribe it had nowhere to go home to be demolished, it would just happen on the street. She was held at the mercy of the hospital, her family was not there. Very often in the first grad appeared such grandmother. Father Arkady Shatov, abbot of the temple of the hospital thinking about creating a poorhouse.



After the temple donated four-room apartment on Shabolovke, solved the problem started. On the eve of 2000 brought here Vera Nikolaevna, then almost immediately had another monk of (so-called living in the poorhouse). Caring for them were nurses of St. Dimitry Sisterhood.



By the time they have worked for 10 years on patronage, went home, helped grandparents. But with heavy patients had to spend almost all day. Frail were the first inhabitants. Hospice gradually grew to six people. Four years later, the temple acquired by donations from the second apartment on the floor above. This is how the Holy Spiridonievsky hospice.



Now here 12 inhabitants, 10 grandmothers, grandfather and paralyzed man of forty, all heavy and recumbent. Care they need professional: look for bedsores, perform medical appointments, provide hygienic care. Recumbent can not themselves neither eat nor wash or go to the toilet. And since everyone is doing all this several times a day, and sisters spinning from morning to evening. Wet cleaning of all rooms, too, rests on them.



In the poorhouse employs fifteen permanent sisters, about ten people come as volunteers. In one of the apartments - the chef, he cooks on two floors. In another kitchen arranged laundry.



Change begins at 8 am. The sisters come a little earlier to change clothes and take a case in the night sister. She tells how one felt, what tablets were given, there were cases of emergency. Similarly, the daily pass the night sister, what happened during the day, what new destination and correction were.



Morning toilet, washing away, dressing, changing diapers, sitting at breakfast. Sitting can be almost everything, but not for long. Tire quickly. Igor I. transplanted into a chair and is brought to the table, the others sitting at the bedside.



Then, hygiene and medical applications. Who - dropper who - prick.



Inhabitants are trying somehow to intensify. The more active man, the longer he lives, and the easier it is to him sisters. The sisters do not have the ability to output to the inhabitants of the street, they walk only with volunteers or friends. It's always a great joy for them and the event, but it happens very rarely.



When guests come to one person, the inhabitants put to the carriage, and two sisters, hooking the straps used by porters, through itself and the wheelchair together with the visitor down the stairs. Likewise back. If there are no men, tyagyayut four. Once tried to do something to equip ramp, but it does not end it. Downloads folding rails, but the climb up and down the patients did not work - the stairs are steep, afraid to drop.



So the sisters try to monks even longer sitting. Something listened to someone who can - read by flipping albums with photos. Volodya and Igor I. computer sit Zoya music listening or watching movies. All frail, but how can they take anything.



After dinner, sleep, and afternoon tea. In the evening, again changing diapers, cleaning the, dressing and evening appointments.



Such work is difficult to combine with something. Physically nursing very heavy. Grandmothers weigh 80 pounds to their substitution, must be turned in bed.



Once a week, each of inhabitants bath day. His transplanted out of bed in a chair and taken to the bathroom, it is specially made floor drain. This procedure is the most difficult and it happens every day from someone. Undress, take hands in his arms, transplanted into a chair - all this makes one sister, two people uncomfortable. In the bathroom - nail clippers and processing bottlenecks. At this time, the other sister is changing linens and washing the bed with a special solution. At this point, bring already washed grandmother.



Sometimes it happens that the other sister does not have time, she has someone to describe and crap one's pants. Then the first should itself lay a clean bed and a shift grandmother. All this must be done quickly, the old people get tired of all these manipulations.



...



This is a great physical strain, after the change of force is no longer anything. If sister works in two days, the first day comes to life, and the second may already be engaged in something.



Combining this work even with some unrealistic. All the sisters are working only in the poorhouse. Salaries malenky - 130 rubles per hour. But the work here is not because of the money.



After a ten-course Victoria what time was Sethra patronage. The work was too heavy for her. But it could not escape it, remained in the laundry room as a volunteer.



Diagnoses are different. Julia Gavrilovny - stroke. Do Raisa - stroke, a broken arm, leg and craniotomy after tumor. She has one hand more or less moves, and one leg may be supported. Due to this, it can be dragged, she weighs 160 pounds. If not for the leg, it would generally not be raised.



Zoya Mikhailovna whole bunch of diseases, it is infirmity. She even sit for a long time can not, falls, draped her pillows. Until recently, barely ate itself, but now her sister fed.



Volodya was the youngest, he 44 years old. He had a fracture of the cervical vertebrae, lower chest nothing moves. But, fortunately, he can with one hand once and move one finger to press the mouse. His entire life on the Internet, it will cover hospice. Volodya only read stuff on the keyboard he can not.



Most spermatozoa was Alexandra, could with a walker, accompanied by two sisters go out. But now weakened. Over time, all converted into bedridden.



...



At Igor I. infirmity, contracture, do not hold up. Began to reject his head. With older people it is very difficult to work with. They believe that their lives ottrudilis and now have the right to whims. Another senile dementia (dementia) begins.



Suitable sister to my grandmother, and she says to her: "Do not touch me, leave everything. I want nothing, nothing will! "And it should be washed away, wash up, get dressed, eat breakfast. Sisters include imagination, invent some story, try to switch attention: "Well, let's, well, please. And you know who will come to us today? "And zabaltyvaya, quietly doing business.



...



Often, patients are quarreling among themselves. But they were not Russell. Who in their right mind - understand the hopelessness of the situation, humbled. This is not a hospital, where two or three months, you can return home. Here, everyone knows that remain here until the end of his days. The sisters try to arrange some small joy: holidays, birthdays, Christmas concert, sometimes prepared performances.



Television in the poorhouse not look. He stayed in one of the rooms. Raisa, for example, all the news perceived to heart, much to worry about. Senile dementia worsens the situation, she begins to misinterpret, perskazyvat some nightmares. And the TV under the pretext that he was broke, was taken away. She had forgotten about him. He found a replacement - Raisa loves listening to the songs of Soviet composers Ruslanova Magomaev Tolkunova.



Her neighbor, Julia Gavrilovna, almost deaf. She was once a teacher of English and German. Loved to read, and then began to go blind. It was a tragedy for her, she lost what she can live with. But one of the sisters guessed her to wear headphones, they still hear it. Now, from morning till evening Julia Gavrilovna listen to audiobooks and nobody interferes with anyone.



A good life here, no one misses. It is always very severe cases which can be reported, leaving the church statement Tsarevich Dimitry for candle table. Elder sister Olga G. and Margaret doctor Vitalyevna go home, look at the situation. First of all, take away those who just die in the most desperate cases. With the others talk, someone he realizes that the situation with their relatives is not critical as the others. For them is a variant of patronage at home. Forty sisters come to such helpless people in the morning and leave in the evening. They do everything: fed, cared for, conduct hygiene procedures and carry a doctor's appointment.

Turn to the poorhouse there is almost always. But in anticipation of stuff happens, we all are not eternal. Sometimes dying grandmother, free space, and the queue is not. Someone has died, someone built a ...

Holy Spiridonievsky hospice - one of the 24 projects of the Orthodox service assistance "Mercy", exists on the donations of caring people.