"We wash, and feed, and write down poems": how a retired woman from Senno created a support group for elderly people
What should people do when they retire? Raise grandchildren, bake pies, knit – is that all? Feel bored and go to the doctors, sit on the bench and nibble sunflower seeds? What else comes to mind? The joint project of LADY.TUT.BY and the Swiss Red Cross "Third Age" will tell about women who live differently. Every day they confirm: at any age, in different conditions it is possible to live an interesting live, to communicate, to be friends with somebody and to feel needed. Our heroine is Nina Metelica from Senno.
— Maybe… you shouldn't write about me? - Nina Fyodorovna has doubts. – There is nothing special about us, old ladies...
Nina Fyodorovna is modest, she has such character, but she can tell a lot. She was born during the war, in 1944. All her life she spent in her native Senno, and only went to Bogushevsk to take the two-year training course of the Red Cross for nurses, where she enrolled after school. The medical dynasty began with her. More than 40 years Nina worked as a surgical nurse in the polyclinic of Senno Central District Hospital and received the title "Excellent Worker of Public Health". Her husband is also a medical worker – he is a veterinarian. Following their parents footsteps, their children studied as doctors, and later their granddaughter followed the same path.
— And the youngest granddaughter Nastenka has finished four years of Vitebsk Medical University, - says Nina proudly. - She is studying medical care. Now she is in Samara, as the best student she and her classmate were sent to practice surgery there.
Nina Fedorovna's family circle is good, but tight for her. She got used to being among people, helping them and feeling that she was needed. It is hard for an active person to stay at home. After retiring, Nina Fyodorovna became a volunteer of the Belarus Red Cross. She was surrounded by former medical workers. Thus an initiative group of elderly people "Rodnik” (Spring -well)" appeared in Senno.
— In 2009, we had only five people in our group", says Nina Fedorovna. - Today we have already 32! I knew everyone in the hospital. And as soon as I heard that someone was retiring, I immediately offered to volunteer with us. Now everyone in the town knows about the group, someone will read about us and ask to join the group themselves. I accepted everyone.
Nina Fyodorovna became the leader of the new team. She says that like-minded are gathered there. Nina's husband supported her activities - he himself joined the group of volunteers.
— But they are the kind of men who will do everything at a word when we need their help. We have made a flowerbed, and it is difficult to look after it. We would ask the men and they would dig it up and mow it clean.
The flowerbed in the local park is just a small thing the volunteer do. The main thing is taking care of seriously ill people.
— We have a motto: "A river is born from a small spring-weel of goodness".
Medical volunteers visit lonely elderly people and those with disabilities, take care of the bedridden patients. Nina herself has two beneficiaries, and she talks about them as if they were her relatives. One of them, Alina Filipovna, is 90 years old. Her only son passed away recently. Another one, Natalia Leonidovna, is only 57. When doctors diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis, the woman was not even forty. At that time, Natalia Leonidovna was actively working, held a responsible position, raised her only daughter. Three years later she was completely paralyzed.
Her daughter often comes from Vitebsk, and the social worker regularly visits, but the bedridden patient needs care all the time. Nina started taking care of Natalia.
— For example, the doctor prescribed the injections, we do it. We always measure the blood pressure. Sometimes I have to call a doctor, sometimes I have to go to a pharmacy. I have to wash and feed her, - Nina Fyodorovna lists her responsibilities.
It is also important to talk to her. Natalia Leonidovna cannot move, but she can talk well.
— She even writes poetry! - admires Nina. - She wrote a poem to her grandson as a present for his first school day. She tells me, I write it down.
Senno is a small town, but visiting both of them takes alreday 10 kilometers. Nina gets on her bike in her 73 years old and off she goes.
— Usually I take the bike with the basket. I put a tonometer in it. And if they ask me to go to a shop or to a pharmacy, also put food and medicine in it," explains the woman.
Kindness is important not only for the elderly, says Nina. Together with the group, they travel around the district to visit the department for young disabled people, a social shelter, a nursing home, and a club that unites mothers of children with disabilities.
— We sing and dance for them. We would bake buns, bring sweet gifts, clothes, wish them a happy birthday. You have to see their eyes," Nina is excited. - Once we came to perform in the agro-town of Bogdanovo, in the department of round-the-clock stay. And there we saw a man in a wheelchair, with amputated legs, he can play the accordion. He asked: "I don't need anything, he said, just give me an accordion. We gave him ours.
She has no time to be bored – she always has plans.
— It is summer time, I am going to have a little vacation. We need to rest, too," says Nina Fedorovna. I will go to Glubokoye - to exchange experience with other groups of elderly people, to visit religios places. I will ask other volunteers to visit my beneficiaries, I will inform Natalia daughter - and I will leave for a week.