CHISINAU (Moldpress), May 15, 2008:
President Vladimir Voronin of Moldova visited the National Centre of Gerontology and Geriatrics, set up to provide guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and prophylaxis of sick elderly people to Moldovan medical institutions.
Health Minister Larisa Catrinici gave details of the Centre's professional staff, the institution's facilities and modern specialised equipment. The Centre specialises not only in old people's treatment and recovery, but also in scientific research in human aging and its consequences. The Centre is the only medical institution in Moldova with specialised medical assistants who take care and give advice to elderly people, the Minister noted.
Specialists served as instructors for the creation of saloons specialised in geriatrics with medical and social beds in district centres, which are to turn into territorial centres of gerontology and geriatrics in future.
Anatolie Negara, Director of the National Centre of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Anatolie Negara, said the centre has set three goals:
* to initiate scientific research in gerontology, including implications in the organisms' biology and physiology; psychology, public health, economics, society, demography, sociology, anthropology.
* To set up a department of gerontology and geriatrics at the State University of Medicine and Pharmacy Nicolae Testemiteanu, to train family physicians, and set up similar units in all the Moldovan district centres, including the Transnistrian region.
* Continuous training of staff, especially by foreign experts.
President Vladimir Voronin hailed the creation of the National Centre of Gerontology and Geriatrics, as part of the effort to improve elderly people's living standards. Care of old people is a moral duty of the state's and society, he commented. Voronin said that the Centre will promote sustainable development of the services of elderly people's medical and social protection, and help remove difficulties that lead to social isolation and discrimination of old people, and prolongelderly people's active participation in society.
Vladimir Voronin was satisfied that specialists from Moldovan district centres have become aware of the need to restore gerontology traditions in Moldova. During 1922-32, the Institute for Study and Combating Old Age worked in Chisinau. It was the only institution at that time studying the phenomenon of aging in Europe, Voronin said. He underlined the importance of scientific research in gerontology and geriatrics, and to establish collaboration in these fields with partners from the countries of the region and Europe.
Seniors World Chronicle report based on material from Moldpres News Agency.
