Life at the end: how Vinnytsia hospice works

The only department for palliative care in the region has been operating on the basis of Vinnytsia Clinical Hospital No. 3 for two years. Today, it can receive 35 patients at the same time. If earlier it was only local residents, now people from the districts are also served.

During the first year of operation, more than 320 people used the services of the hospice. Since the beginning of this year, more than 350. Most patients have disappointing diagnoses - mostly cancer patients and after strokes.

Hospice is not so much medical care, but rather care for people with severe incurable diseases who need pain relief in the last days and minutes of life. The wards of the medical institution are single or double, equipped according to all European standards of palliative care: video surveillance, bedside call button and anti-bedsore mattresses. Relatives and friends can visit the patient in the hospice almost 24 hours a day.

35 people work in the palliative care department. These are pediatricians and nurses. However, there are not so many willing to provide people with the last help in the last minutes of life.

According to Mykola Yavorovenko, head of the "Hospice" department of MKL No. 3, 60% of doctors do not want to work with such patients. It is quite difficult and difficult to morally endure human grief.

In addition to medical assistance, the patient can be provided with legal, psychological and spiritual support. The main motto of the hospice is "If a person cannot be cured, it does not mean that he cannot be helped."

We will remind that the first  hospice in Vinnytsia  was opened on October 15  at the base of hospital No. 3 on Mayakovsky Street  with the participation of the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Groysman and acting Vinnytsia Mayor Serhiy Morgunov.

Vinnytsia.info, according to the materials of the TV channel "VIT