The Premises of the Hrodna Children's Hospice Are Taken Away Because of the Director's Civic Position

The authorities say that "everything is caused by the coronavirus."

The lease agreement was unilaterally terminated with the Hrodna Children's Hospice named after St. Hubert. On October 22, the director of the hospice, Volha Vialichka, learned about this. She received a letter signed by the deputy chief physician of the Second Hrodna Children's Polyclinic Iryna Holub, Belsat reports.

It follows from the letter that the hospice must vacate the premises by December 23 of this year since the polyclinic needs the area to organize work in difficult epidemiological conditions.

"We do not understand anything at all, what difficult epidemiological situations can we talk about if, according to the official data of the Ministry of Health, we have a slight increase in the number of cases in comparison with other countries? What difficult epidemic situations does the polyclinic predict in December?" - the director of the hospice Volha Vialichka is perplexed.

Lawyers are trying to appeal against the lease's termination since it is problematic to find other premises for the hospice. In 2019, Volha turned to the city authorities with a request to provide them with premises; however, the authorities did not satisfy this request.

Search in the children's hospice

On the same day, employees of the Office of the Financial Investigation Department came to the hospice, asked the hospice staff to open all the rooms in order to conduct an examination as part of an audit against the management and hospice staff on the facts of understating taxes and tax evasion.

At the hospice, volunteers sewed personal protective equipment for doctors for free during the pandemic. A month ago, the city authorities took away this premises for the work of volunteers, which a few months ago they gave them on the order of Hrodna Mayor Mechyslauv Goja. If the hospice loses its main premises, then only a psychological center for parents will remain in the organization, at one of the Hrodna churches.

What does the hospice do?

The Children's Hospice named after St. Hubert has been operating for 13 years. Now the organization helps about 7 dozen families with seriously ill children who have cancer, genetic, or pathological diseases. Hospice staff provides medical, psychological, and social assistance to such families.

Hospice director Volha Vialichka says that she has no problems with paying taxes. But she has an active civic position. The day before, she was detained during a courtyard meeting, spent the night in a temporary detention facility, and received a fine by a court decision.