Talk to me
Doctors for Peace, thanks to the initial funds of UBI-Italian Buddhist Union, has activated a remote listening desk to cope with the COVID-19 emergency and its consequences. The telephone service, which is still active, offers health and psychological support to people living in marginalized conditions.
The context
The epidemiological emergency we are experiencing has brought about a profound change in our daily habits. Social distancing, travel restrictions, the use of masks and gloves for outings have limited the spread of the virus but have created an unprecedented situation that risks having strong social repercussions.
Among the subjects most affected by these measures are the social groups already followed by Doctors for Peace: among these are the elderly, many times alone and in a state of emotional fragility; families in conditions of socio-economic disadvantage, who now find themselves having to face a generalized crisis; minors at risk of educational poverty, who have now found themselves far from school and without the educational support previously started; homeless people who experience this contingency with particular uncertainty and discomfort; population of foreign origin.
To cope with these new inconveniences, a telephone support service has been activated for everyone, in Italian, English and French, to try to respond to the needs of those categories who are always on the margins of society.
Activities
The service offers health, psychological and practical support thanks to a multidisciplinary team of volunteers made up of: doctors, nurses, educators, psychologists, cultural mediators.
The service is carried out as follows:
- Telephone number active every morning and one afternoon a week that takes care of receiving calls.
- An operator is responsible for obtaining all the information of the interested party by filling out a detailed questionnaire on the needs that have emerged.
- The questionnaire is then processed to be assigned to the most suitable volunteer to meet the user’s needs.
- The selected volunteer contacts the user offering all the necessary support to solve the problem that has emerged.
