Support 150 Tuberculosis Patients in Moldova

Because of the generosity of our GlobalGiving donors, Speranta Terrei reaches tuberculosis (TB) patients in remote parts of northern Moldova. Olga’s and Andrei’s family lives in Struzeni village in Riscani district, a distance of 58 kilometers from Speranta Terrei’s home city of Balti. When Olga was hospitalized for drug-resistant TB treatment in the capital, Chisinau, her doctor asked Speranta Terrei to give Directly Observed Therapy (DOT) to her children. All 6 children, 3 boys and 3 girls, were diagnosed with drug-resistant TB, the youngest an infant who is with his mother in hospital.

Donations that come through GlobalGiving to Speranta Terrei fund allowances to medical assistants, such as Elena, who treks daily to Olga’s and Andrei’s run-down house at the edge of Struzeni village. Elena administers the children’s medicine that she carries with her from the dispensary and monitors their symptoms and side effects. She will continue to give DOT to the family until they complete treatment, even after Olga returns from hospital. Olga’s father had died of TB and she may have been infected a while ago and the disease remained latent. Olga’s husband, Andrei, does not have TB in spite of the close quarters in which the family lives.

Elena says, “this family has little and the children miss their mother, I go every day, even on days I must wear rubber boots to walk through mud.” With the help of Speranta Terrei’s partner organization, Healthy Cities, Speranta Terrei’s president, Dora, brought food and clothing donations to the family on a recent visit along with Elena. The older children attend school, the younger children stay at home. Their grandmother cooks and looks after them in their mother’s absence. Andrei is at his job most of the day, working as a driver in Riscani. He says, “thanks to Elena, my children take their medicine, I wait for my wife to recover and for us all to be together.”

Olga and Andrei send a special thanks to our committed donors, as do we, for giving their family a chance to recover from TB.