ST. PETERSBURG, January 6. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited a children’s hospice in St. Petersburg on Sunday and talked to the small patients and their parents. The children received sacks with sweets and toys in the form of the Moscow Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower.
"You have a very nice house here," Putin said in a conversation with the children who said that they like it here.
In response, the children presented the state leader with hand-painted Christmas-tree decorations.
Director General of the autonomous non-profit organization Children’s Hospice Alexander Tkachenko showed the chambers, the intensive care unit, the recreation rooms and the dining room to Putin. There is also a prayer room in the hospice for representatives of all religions, where the president lit a candle.
There are more than 250 children currently registered with St. Petersburg Children’s Hospice, including 23 children who are staying in the in-patient department on a round-the-clock basis. A visiting nurse care service for providing palliative help to children also monitors the hospice’s patients at home. The main activity is providing help to children and teenagers aged from three months to 18 years who live in St. Petersburg.
The non-state medical facility St. Petersburg Children’s Hospice was established in 2006. The important achievement at this stage of development was that patients could receive not just medical, but social, psychological and spiritual help as well. In order to further enhance the accessibility and quality of children’s palliative help in St. Petersburg, the first Russian state children’s hospice was opened in 2010 at archpriest Alexander Tkachenko’s initiative and with support from the city government.