Visit to NBH in June 2025
The NBH building is intact and in perfect condition.
The new head physician, Iryna Alexandrowna, is a very friendly and kind woman. Vika has met her before, but neither of them can remember where or when that was.
NBH functions as a rehabilitation center and is open to children with all kinds of disabilities (physical and mental). All rehabilitation programs that LAdS has sponsored and organized in the past continue to be used. It was very nice to see how everything that LAdS has created is still being used and maintained today. The NBH is no longer what it once was, but it is definitely just as useful and important as it used to be. It has new tasks that the staff perform perfectly. One of the new areas of work is helping children who have been victims of war. Children who have survived attacks, been injured, or lost loved ones can receive psychological help at the NBH. One of the patients, for example, is a 15-year-old girl who lost both feet when she stepped on a landmine.
24 Orphans who lived in Chernovtsy and were able to return to Nikolayev at the beginning of the year lived in three groups at the NBH. In the spring, the Children’s Rights Commissioner (Ombudsman for Children) came to inspect and caused a scandal because the children were living in a building that did not have a “proper” air-raid shelter. As a result, the children were quickly evacuated again, this time to the orphanage in Rivne. Now the government of the Nikolayev region (oblast) has been tasked with building a shelter as quickly as possible. A cost estimate and project are currently being drawn up, and construction is planned to begin by the end of the summer.
The mother-baby department is a very successful project that continues to function well and provides enormous help to mothers who give birth to children with special needs.
The mothers leave their babies just as often as before the war, if not more often. Therefore, the government is in a hurry to build a shelter.
And there are still children who have to be taken away from their families because of drugs, alcohol, or violence. These children need to be placed somewhere until a family is found that is willing to adopt them. And there are also palliative children who will never be adopted and cannot stay in hospitals permanently. The plan is for all these children to live in the NBH once the shelter is completed. Iryna currently has four large group rooms available for these children. These groups are not currently in use, remain empty, and are waiting for children. Iryna sees the situation as a good opportunity to renovate the group rooms a little before the children return. She wants to renew the sanitary facilities and bathroom equipment, repair the floors, and refresh the walls.
It was a very interesting visit. Vika was impressed by what the NBH currently offers and achieves. Vika felt that the NBH has been given a new lease of life and that all the changes are very positive and interesting. The NBH, the staff who work there, and above all the children deserve your help. We will publish possible projects in another article.
