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Press Release: 09.10.2015
Groundbreaking ceremony of the first children’s hospice in Gerogia will take place on Saturday, October 10 – the day of marking the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day.
Groundbreaking ceremony will be held at 12:00 a.m., in Village Digomi (near white houses), at the construction site of the Hospice.
This social project is initiated by the Open Society Georgia Foundation and it si funded by EVEX Medical Corporation, the Presidential Reserve Fund and individual donors.
Groundbreaking ceremony of the first children’s hospice will be opened by First Lady of Georgia Maka Chichua, Director of Open Society Georgia Foundation Keti Khutsishvili and General Director of EVEX Medical Corporation Nikoloz Gamkrelidze. The ceremony of laying the memorial capsule in the foundation of the Hospice will take place immediately after the greetings.
Construction of the Children’s Hospice will be completed by the end of 2016. In Georgia, it will be the first hospice providing free palliative care services to terminally ill children and their families.
Children’s Hospice will work in three main areas: provision of 24-hour service simultaneously for 10 children, daycare center, where children and their parents will receive the necessary services during the day and home care services. It should be noted that with the initiative of Open Society Georgia Foundation and with the support of EVEX Medical Corporation home care service is already operating in Georgia and providing completely and utterly free full service to 15 children and their parents.
The idea of establishing Children’s Hospice has emerged after the survey conducted in 2013, which assessed palliative care needs of children. As survey results prompted, annual statistics for children with palliative care need is 839 children from 0 to 18 years old.
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Hospice and Palliative Care
Palliative care for children is a care provided to children with incurable and chronic diseases. Palliative care involves the relief of symptoms caused by the disease, as well as provision of psychological and emotional support to children and their families. The need for palliative care arises when dealing with a treatment-resistant disease. In children, such diseases may be the last stages of cancer, diabetes, various neurological diseases, severe forms of cerebral palsy and other. Unlike adults, children with need of palliative care require a bit different approach.
First of all, children’s palliative care is oriented towards the family. It is better to start palliative care as early as possible, since it is more effective for a child, as well as for his/her family members. It relieves pain and emotional overload, which makes it difficult for the child and his family to deal with and fight against severe diseases.
The basic concept of Children’s Hospice is to create friendly and comfortable environment for children, where in addition to caring personnel great importance is attached to the environment, interior, name of the hospice and all those details that ensure a harmonious adjustment of a child to a new facility. “Dream House”, “World Map”, “Hunting of Stars”, “Beyond the Rainbow”, “House of Hope” – these are the names of hospices in different countries.
The main goal of the hospice is to create a family-type environment. Therefore, in many European countries, hospices are arranged in small, maximum three-story buildings. There are many successful examples of children’s hospices in the world. In this regard, countries with great experiences are the Netherlands, Germany, England, America and Romania. There are hospices, which resemble the house of one of the literary character or an imaginary universe.
In Georgia, palliative care has been developed and promoted by the Open Society Georgia Foundation since 1999. Two hospices for adults have been already established in Georgia with the support of OSGF – one at the Cancer Prevention Center and the other at the Transfiguration Monastery.
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Contact persons for the press:
Ana Toklikishvili, Open Society Georgia Foundation, Tel: 595 221 999, E-mail: Anuka@csf.ge, www.csf.ge
Giorgi Nioradze, EVEX Medical Corporation, Tel: 577 31 38 39 , E-mail: giorginioradze@evex.ge www.evex.ge
