Veronika, from Kiev to Assisi to continue living

Veronica can’t move, she needs a tube to feed herself and struggles to survive every day. Since the war in Ukraine began, it can no longer be cured and housed in Kiev in the Institute that has been following her on her rehabilitation process for two years, after a cardiac arrest and a coma. It seems impossible to think of a move and instead Veronica managed to get out of her country and get to theSeraphic Institute of Assisi. The hospital that Veronica was in can no longer house patients like many others in the country. However, it is difficult to find one in Ukraine where at every alarm you have to move to the shelters.

His case had a positive ending. Francesca Di Maolo, president of the Seraphic Institute, received the report from the Health Office of the CEI, the Italian Episcopal Conference, which is committed to the Italian Caritas on the reception of refugees and has given willingness to welcome as many children as possible. Veronica, along with her family is the first of her, but others will arrive. This is the purpose of the Institute: to protect the most fragile and defenseless life since 1871 when it was born for the rehabilitation of children and young people with severe and very serious disabilities.

“My house is here now, where my daughter is fine, where it is followed and is not considered a waste as it has happened until now “says Yevhen, the father of the child, who is in Assisi with his wife Olha and Vlada, aged 14, and Nazar aged 6. In Ukraine he worked two jobs for pay for her daughter’s care. “We lived for one month in Dnipro, our city, and one month in Kiev where Veronika was following a series of therapies in a private clinic. To pay the rent of the house and the treatments I did two jobs: I had a telephone accessories shop and in my free time I was also a taxi driver ». And in addition to this she had an open collection on social networks to recover funds for the child.

War broke out on their last day in Kiev. «The anti-aircraft alarm went off at 5.30 in the morning: we had the final appointment of the treatment cycle at 10. We could not complete the therapies and we went back to Dnipro to find someone who could help Veronika. ‘ Just contacting a doctor was an impossible feat.

“This is why we went West: our priority was find medicines and food for Veronika: without them it was impossible to think about moving ». With empty pharmacies and hospitals in a state of emergency it took days and days to put together the necessary medicines. Then, as soon as it was possible, they traveled to Ternopil in the west.

Thanks to a relative in contact with the Secretary of the Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halyc, they found a connection with the Seraphic. “We had to cross the Hungarian border and Veronika, with the disease that forces her to live lying down, he faced the journey on my wife’s legs, while I was driving. I drove for at least ten hours straight, but we couldn’t stop even though fatigue was taking over: we had to get here as soon as possible, where someone could have guaranteed the care and assistance Veronika needed », continues her father.

The medical director of the institute Sandro Eliseiafter all the exams, he is ready to develop a personalized rehabilitation and assistance program “suited to the health needs of the child with the aim of concretely guaranteeing the best quality of life for her and her whole family possible”.

“The arrival of this family at the Seraphic was moving”, says President Di Maolo, “because all the tension of those difficult days in which we knew that the little girl was traveling, melted in the embrace with Nazar, Veronika’s little brother. When we laid Veronika on her bed, her brother sat next to her and while we, with the help of our interpreter, talked with their parents, he held her hand and kissed her repeatedly: these are images that we will never forget. . After so much war, destruction, and death, finally an image of life that wins in spite of every war, every limitation and every disease ».

The next to arrive will be Platononly two years old, and still others are expected in the coming days from Ukraine thanks to the project “Francis ‘beds”, a real humanitarian corridor born in 2013 after Pope Francis’ visit to the Seraphic and dedicated to him, to provide necessary care for all those minors with multiple disabilities coming from war zones or from realities that do not allow an adequate rehabilitation process.

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