After the scandal with the Ombudsman's visit, a new bomb shelter will be built in the regional children's home in Mykolaiv

A new bomb shelter is to be built at the Centre for Medical Rehabilitation and Palliative Care for Children, known as the Regional Children's Home.

This is stated in the article «What has changed in 3 weeks after the scandal in the Mykolaiv Children's Home: children were taken away, regional deputies ignored the problem» online media NikVesti.

As is known, during a monitoring visit in February, representatives of the Ombudsman's Office found that employees of the medical facility where children undergoing rehabilitation were being held ignored the signal «Air raid».

«The staff of the institution did not take any measures to move the children to a safe place. Instead, the children continued to stay in the beds of the living rooms. The staff of the medical facility reported that children are moved to a safe place only when a possible threat of rocket fire is announced,» said Iryna Suslova, representative of the Ombudsperson for Children's Rights, to NikVesti.

Only now, after 3 years of full-scale war, it turned out that the shelter of the regional Centre for Medical Rehabilitation and Palliative Care for Children is not suitable for children to stay there.

In a commentary to NikVesti, the deputy head of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration, Yurii Hranaturov, said that the commission formed by the regional healthcare department had re-examined the situation with the shelter and determined that it was not technically possible to arrange a shelter in the basement of the centre due to natural conditions.

«We are currently ordering design and estimate documentation for the new construction of a radiation shelter, which will be built in accordance with all standards as a separate structure connected to the building,» said Yurii Hranaturov.

Earlier it was reported that the children from the Medical Rehabilitation and Palliative Care Centre in Mykolaiv, known as the Children's Home, were temporarily relocated to other regions, away from the war zone.

Scandal in the reorganised baby home in Mykolaiv

On 3 March, it became known that the monitoring group of the Ombudsman's Office, together with NGOs, had inspected children's educational institutions in Mykolaiv region and found gross violations of children's rights. The children were fixed with belts to chairs and strollers, and a six-month-old baby suffered swelling from «tying». In other institutions, children were given expired medicines, did not receive medical care and had limited access to basic services.

On the same day, Inna Miroshnychenko, an orphan rights activist and lawyer who is a member of the Ombudsman's Monitoring Group, showed the conditions in which children live in the reorganised Centre for Medical Rehabilitation and Palliative Care in Mykolaiv (Regional Children's Home). She actually showed the children tied to chairs, who are not allowed to go for walks and are forced to spend time watching TV.

The human rights activist said that according to the conditions, 89 employees are supposed to take care of the children. However, according to the data from the Ombudsman's Office monitoring team, only two employees were looking after the children. She called the conditions in which the children were kept inhumane.

It should be noted that in April 2024, the Centre for Medical Rehabilitation and Palliative Care was merged with the Mykolaiv Regional Children's Hospital. At the time, this decision was explained by the need to «protect» the institution from a lack of funding.

We would also like to remind you that this is not the first scandalous case involving the Mykolaiv Oblast Children's Hospital. Back in July 2023, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the hospital was in poor condition during his visit to Mykolaiv.

In one of the wards, Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that the room was not adapted for a comfortable stay. In particular, the ward lacked curtain rods, curtains, and air conditioning.