In Aktobe, volunteers came to the aid of an 86-year-old woman living in appalling conditions, moving her to tears. Relevant services have now stepped in, infohub.kz reports.

"A concerned young woman told us about a grandmother living in horrific conditions. She had been trying to help Tatyana Pavlovna on her own for a whole month. Our volunteers Olga and Zauresh went to the scene. The situation turned out to be catastrophic — the sewage was blocked, it was completely unsanitary, with cockroaches and bedbugs crawling on the walls. There was no food," said Yekaterina Golotina, a volunteer with the Dobro movement.

According to her, the grandmother can barely move and mostly lies down. She constantly asks what there is to eat. "Our girls brought breakfast, lunch, dinner and left food in reserve. Tatyana Pavlovna cried and said she was living as if after a bombing. She thanked the girls for saving her from death, otherwise she would have starved," Golotina noted.

The volunteers' video is heartbreaking. The poor woman sits on the edge of her bed, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. "I am so unhappy, I was once a top worker," the Aktobe woman weeps. The girls bathed her, dressed her in clean, warm clothes, and called social services and the police. It was established that she was born in 1940. The home has stripped walls and no doors.

"It feels as if the apartment was being prepared for sale and everything was dismantled — of course, that is just our assumption. The doors were also removed. There is only a sofa and a gas stove, but no gas. According to her, a woman receives her pension, but where that money is and who this woman is — the police will sort that out. The grandmother complains of headaches, incontinence, leg pain and memory problems. There are clear health issues. We have long said that our city needs a crisis center for elderly people in trouble. Over the year we have had around 40 appeals specifically from elderly people who have been left alone," Golotina believes.

Currently, the pensioner has been hospitalized in the inpatient unit of City Multidisciplinary Hospital No. 1, where she will undergo examination.

"A mobile group visited the woman, including staff from the Aktobe Family Support Center. During the inspection it was established that the pensioner cannot answer specific questions related to her mental state. When we were on site, the woman could not show us documents. According to her, a woman receives her pension, and the police are investigating this. For our part, we have filed a statement, investigations are underway, but until all circumstances are clarified, the pension payment has been suspended. The grandmother is receiving nursing care in the regional hospital," said Makpal Turmagambetova, head of the Aktobe Department of Employment and Social Programs.

The regional police department said officers are conducting an investigation and looking into the circumstances of the incident.