AFG Projects: Elderly: Hospice Care
Mercy Center
Personal Observations from the Executive Director: Abbess Mariam, who has left the care of the street children at Dzegvi and Bediani to her very capable volunteers and nuns, founded the Mercy Center in 2002. The Mercy Center includes the first Hospice for Palliative Care and the first School for Hospice Nurses in Georgia. Georgian hospitals are not able to receive terminally ill patients because they are not curable. There are many sick and dying Georgians who have no one to care for them. Mother Mariam explained, “The Mercy Center program is to help the terminally ill to receive medical and spiritual care, which will enable them to die with dignity.” Her nurses visit the terminally ill in their homes, in hospitals as well as care for them at her hospice.
Abbess Mariam is also providing hospice nurse training. Her genius is that she is able to see how a project will have benefits and rewards for everyone involved. Mother Mariam has combined the need for hospice care for the terminally ill with the need of young women from poor families who have limited opportunities to continue their education after high school. Currently, there are six young women (ages 16-20) receiving practical training at the hospice as well as attending the Medical College of the Tbilisi State University where they will obtain certificates as professional nurses. The need for hospice care is so great that Abbess Mariam is expanding the Mercy Center to accommodate 24 nursing students. This larger school will obtain the status of an accredited institution, and be able to train more nurses.
The Mercy Center was started with the help of Georgian businessmen who like to donate to Mother Mariam’s projects because they trust her to give the help to those who need it most.
AFG Accomplishments: Georgian businessmen, an American anonymous donor, the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Foundation and AFG have:
- Fundraised with Mother Mariam in the U.S. to raise money for the Mercy Center hospice and nursing school.
- Purchased and renovated two small buildings outside the walls of the convent which have three rooms for the terminally ill, classroom and living space for six hospice nurses in training and a soup kitchen.
- Purchased furniture, refrigerator, stove, dishes, etc. for these buildings.
- Set up laboratory at Mercy Center so that patients can receive chemotherapy.
- Purchased medical equipment for the laboratory.
- Purchased a used ambulance for transporting the seriously and terminally ill.
- Funded monthly expenses for six months of operational costs of hospice including medicines, petrol and food.
- Introduced Sharon Miles, the wife of the former American Ambassador to Georgia, to Mother Mariam. Sharon helped to start the first hospice in Russia ten years ago.
- Sharon Miles obtained a donation of $3,000 fro the Mercy Center from a fundraiser sponsored by the Sheraton Hotel in Tbilisi and Austrian Air.
- Provided funds for Mother Mariam, Mother Tamuna and Dr. Gia Bujiashvili to observe hospice care facilities in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
- Provided funds to start the construction of an accredited Nursing School for Hospice Nurses inside the walls of the convent.
- Introduced Dr. Levan Bakanidze of the National Cancer Center to Mother Mariam who asked her to accept terminal cancer patients at the Mercy Center where they undergo chemotherapy.
Current Needs: The Mercy Center needs:
- Funding for the construction of the enlarged Nursing School to expand the number of hospice nurses who can be trained in Georgia.
- Funding for monthly operational expenses including medicines, food and petrol for the Mercy Center hospice.
- Funding to pay the $300 tuition each nursing student needs to attend nursing school at the Tbilisi State University Medical College.