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It is vital that our charity is transparent about how we spend the money that has been so generously donated. Trustees visit Ukraine at least once a year to make sure that all donations are spent correctly, to enable us to purchase much needed medical equipment and distribute it directly to our partner hospices.
It is crucial that we visit each hospice and mobile palliative care teams supported by the charity, to see them in action, listen to their needs, and discuss how best we can help them to care for their terminally ill patients.
Going forward, our aim is to run training sessions during our visits, to share our knowledge with our Ukrainian colleagues, led by palliative care doctor and founder of Hospice Ukraine, Dr Rachel Clarke.
Our first visit to Ukraine was in October 2022 when Rachel and Henry visited Lviv and Kyiv to meet up with our third co-founder Andrii Myzak, to see for themselves the country’s palliative care teams in action. Their aim was to find out exactly what was needed and to earmark hospices which were desperate for immediate help. They chose Sambir Hospice in Lviv and a mobile hospice unit in Kyiv as the charity’s first two partners.
Rachel and Henry were incredibly moved by the devastation the war is wreaking on the population of Ukraine. She saw teenage boys in military uniforms, not much older than her own son, sitting around in town squares drinking coffee, while waiting to go to fight for their country.
Not to mention Rachel's, Henry’s and Andrii’s extraordinary evacuation to an underground bomb shelter as shells were going off all around them.
