Health and everyday support

In Switzerland, we are responsible for recognizing and registering qualifications in the healthcare sector. Through Swiss Transfusion SRC, we also ensure the continuous supply of blood products throughout the country. And it shares its expertise in blood donor management with eight other countries.

We work in close collaboration with the other societies in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, helping our sister societies in other countries to develop in the healthcare sector, enabling their services to reach the most vulnerable members of society.

In Bosnia & Herzegovina, the SRC worked with the local Red Cross society to set up a home care service in 13 communities. In total, 13 head nurses and 69 specialists provided basic medical care for elderly or disabled people, many of whom live in extreme poverty. Roughly 60 volunteers help with social activities for the elderly people.

Day-to-day assistance

In some villages, elderly people are left to cope with everyday tasks on their own. The younger people have had to leave to earn a living in the city or abroad. For the elderly, the sick and the handicapped, visits from the Red Cross are sometimes the only contact they have with the outside world.

The Red Cross staff monitor their blood sugar, blood pressure and temperature. They help them wash, shave, get dressed or change their clothes, prepare meals, wash dishes, do housework and grocery shopping. They also take them to the doctor’s appointment, take them out for walks and read to them.

Coordination with local authorities

The Red Cross provided initial funding, then the local authorities gradually took over. The beneficiaries pay up to 25% of the cost of their care. Some of the most vulnerable people, who account for a fifth of the total, receive these services free of charge.

Volunteers helping their peers

Roughly 60 Bosnia & Herzegovina Red Cross volunteers help with social activities for the elderly; for example, in clubs that encourage mutual support among older people. The volunteers also take them for walks, read to them or do their grocery shopping.
The Red Cross has become the main care provider for elderly and handicapped people.

More than a million people are currently living in precarious circumstances in the world's biggest refugee camp, Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, while more and more arrive every day. The crisis has been going on for eight years now, and has only been made worse by drastic cuts in humanitarian aid.

High-risk home births

The SRC provides support for three healthcare centres run by the Bangladesh Red Crescent (BDRCS) in the Cox's Bazar refugee camp. Safe childbirth is still one of the main challenges. Women continue to give birth at home, increasing the risk of complications. The reasons for this include traditional customs, family decision-making and a lack of trust in medical facilities. One project we support therefore aims to provide all pregnant women with access to prenatal care and birthing facilities at a health centre.

Involvement and commitment by the men

BDRCS staff and volunteers have been trained in behavioural analysis to identify barriers and enabling factors for births in health centres. They then used this to develop various campaigns to convince families. The BDRCS team worked closely with influential people, such as mothers-in-law, neighbours and authority figures. The project reinforced community involvement, including through more than 180 men’s groups, helped to raise awareness of safe childbirth, and encouraged shared responsibility for mothers’ health. As a result, timely care was provided for over 1300 couples.

Consolidated progress

Last year, we were able to consolidate our progress by raising awareness of safe childbirth and improving care for expectant mothers. As many as 86% of births took place in the healthcare centres we support.

There are still a variety of reasons why women choose to give birth at home, but these results confirm the effectiveness of the holistic approach, which is based on close cooperation between the BDRCS healthcare centres and the volunteers’ work in the community.

The SRC is helping the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC) to strengthen its blood donor service. The aim is to ensure quality, recruit more volunteer donors, and maintain a reliable blood supply even in emergencies.

Lebanon is repeatedly hit by crises, ranging from armed attacks and natural disasters to major accidents. In such situations, the demand for safe blood often rises sharply and quite suddenly. On top of this, the country is in the midst of a prolonged economic crisis that also affects healthcare provision. There is an enormous need for Red Cross support.

Fast help thanks to good cooperation

The LRC runs 13 blood donor centres throughout the country. In emergencies, it is quickly able to mobilize donors through social media channels and the radio. The centres are open around the clock. Thanks to close collaboration with the LRC ambulance services, blood units can be quickly transported from one region to another.

The SRC provides the LRC with professional and financial support to help it expand its disaster preparedness. Among other things, this ensures that there are always sufficient medical supplies available to safely collect, store and transport blood products. A reliable and timely supply is extremely important, as blood has a limited shelf life.

Learning from every crisis

The SRC has been working with the LRC in blood safety for more than 10 years, during which the blood donor service’s quality and efficiency have constantly improved. Every crisis provides new insights that help them be even better prepared in the future.

The attacks in the south of the country in 2024, which left thousands injured, clearly demonstrated the importance of good preparation: the blood donation service was able to respond quickly, saving many lives. The situation in Lebanon remained tense last year, though without any incident of a comparable scale.

With the SRC’s help, the LRC was able to improve its blood donor service procedures and consolidate the progress made so far. The service was able to supply 1 111 111 blood units, thereby covering half of the country’s total requirements.

Anyone who has trained in a healthcare profession abroad and would like to work in Switzerland must have their qualifications recognized. This procedure is carried out by the SRC for 21 different professions. The aim is to ensure that high quality standards are met to protect our patients. The demand for healthcare professionals is high in Switzerland. The number of applications we received grew by 27% last year in comparison to 2024. An especially large number were received for nursing. About 5000 nurses had their qualifications recognized, most of whom had completed their training in Europe.

The SRC has taken on 10 extra staff in this sector to deal with the large number of applicants. In all, we were able to recognize the qualifications of over 7400 professionals, who are now able to work in Switzerland. The total for 2024 was 5860.

Advice for applicants

Recognizing foreign qualifications is a complex procedure because the training and professional experience are different from person to person and from country to country. The SRC makes every effort to assess each application fairly and impartially. We provide applicants with in-depth advice and operate a telephone helpline.

Applicants and employers with staff undergoing the recognition procedure can find detailed information on the SRC website.

About 600 000 people in Switzerland look after their relatives at home. They are often uncertain and have many questions and need a lot of information. In response, last year the SRC released some online guides for family caregivers. These are free of charge and intended specially for those who look after relatives.

The information covers typical care situations and provides well-structured practical answers, for example about caring for people living with dementia, basic everyday nursing know-how, how to provide palliative care for terminally ill patients, and also information for young carers, i.e. children and teenagers looking after a relative.

The online guides answer frequently asked questions, such as how to cope with changing roles within the family or with the increasing frailty of loved ones.

Specific services

In a day-to-day carer role, knowledge is often not enough. The SRC provides a variety of support services for family caregivers, including counselling, courses for family caregivers and respite services. These services are summarized in our online guides, which act as a supplement to the SRC’s support for family caregivers, making it easier to access reliable information and help people navigate the various support services.

The SRC childminding at home service is available throughout Switzerland, to close a gap in the supplementary childcare, particularly for emergencies and other exceptional situations.

Typical circumstances are illness, accident or exhaustion, such as after childbirth. We provide support in particular for families facing multiple challenges and in a financially precarious situation, such as single-parent families and parents or children with mental or physical health issues. The demand remains as strong as ever. A total of 115 600 childminding hours were provided last year, and we clearly see that the circumstances have become more and more complex.

Childminding at home is the only childcare option that can provide a high degree of flexibility: 470 childminders are ready to step in at a moment’s notice. However, in some cantons demand exceeds supply, as finding qualified childminders is a challenge.

For the children’s benefit

Looking after children in familiar surroundings provides a sense of security and stability for both the children themselves and their families. Children are cared for in their own home in their best interests, and the families are treated without prejudice, out of empathy and respect for their particular circumstances. Childminding at home can also help prevent situations from escalating, which might otherwise lead to hospitalization or intervention by the authorities. The service is intended for any family that needs it, so the fee is based on the parents' income.