WHEN:

Monday 21^st March 2016 6.15pm-8.30pm

WHERE:

Institute of Family Therapy, 24-32 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HX

Admission:

RSVP [email protected], tel: 020 7272 7356

A discussion and reception at the Institute of Family Therapy

HealthProm cordially invites you to join us for a chance to meet a team of Ukrainian doctors –Dr Roman Marabyan, Director of the Kharkiv regional specialised Baby Home No 1, Dr Andrey Penkov, lead paediatrician from the Baby Home No 1 and Professor Olena Riga from the Department of Paediatrics and Neonatology of the Kharkiv National Medical University.  They will discuss the opportunities and challenges they face in their work to make real the rights of some of the most vulnerable children in East Ukraine.

Despite the considerable impact of the conflict in East Ukraine, and the political and economic challenges facing the country as a whole, there are advances in the development of children’s rights in Ukraine.

Dr Marabyan and his colleagues in Kharkiv have long pioneered new approaches to support for vulnerable children. They have transformed their Baby House, once an institution for some 140 abandoned babies, into a dynamic early intervention and rehabilitation centre for parents and their children.

Now they have a new goal: they are determined to end the practice of isolating children with short life expectancies, terminal illnesses and the most severe disabilities in hospital intensive care units that have no expertise in providing palliative, pain-free, end-of-life care, and which do not permit families or carers to stay or even visit.

The team is in the UK this month, working with HealthProm and Rainbows Hospice for Children and Young People; and supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ukraine. They are studying a range of approaches to paediatric palliative care, and discussing how they can best achieve their aim – a children’s hospice that will serve as a model of professionalism, compassion and dignity for services throughout Ukraine.

Organised by:

HealthProm: Established in 1984, HealthProm is a UK-based charity which works to ensure vulnerable children have the best start in life. By vulnerable, we mean those children whose physical, emotional, cognitive and social development is held back because of poverty, social exclusion or disability. We work in Afghanistan, Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and Central Asia, through strengthening families and communities, increasing access to health and social services, and promoting education for all.

www.healthprom.org

This meeting and the study visit are part of HealthProm’s project “Supporting the Development of Paediatric Palliative Care in Ukraine” funded by the UK Government.