Young patients can spend years of treatment at the only hospital in Slovenia for the most serious cases of illnesses for children and youths at the Stara Gora department of the Šempeter hospital. The team of professional doctors, health workers and nurses has been fighting for years to move into more decent facilities. They've been supported by parents and the Association for Helping People with Special Needs from Stara Gora. But to no avail. The young patients are still in half a century old, worn out, wooden shacks covered with asbestos, still referred to as "pavilions".

Dergančevo – the sign which stands before the shack settlement of the hospital for invalid youth in Stara Gora, best illustrates the current conditions. It's rusty and cracked. It's as worn out as the shacks, totally unfitting for hospital rooms, filled with seriously ill children. Shacks also filled with medical staff which watches over the young patients by the minute 24 hours a day. And filled with parents who come to help their children and try ease the work of the dedicated staff in Stara Gora.

Metka Šibav, the vice-president of the Association for Helping People with Special Needs from Stara Gora, reveals: "The walls of our shacks, the walls of our so-called pavilions, are made out of asbestos fiber. That says it all! These shacks have been patched up so many times that repair work has become impossible. These shacks should be demolished! Every cent invested in them is thrown away. New ones have to be built to enable the children, medical staff and parents to reside and be treated in more decent facilities. These shacks are like second homes to many children. Some stay here for years. Is the state really so incapable of providing basic and appropriate facilities?!?"

Plans in the drawers for years

And it's not that the management of the Šempeter hospital, the state, or the responsible Ministry of Health are not aware of the disgrace in Stara Gora, in Dergančevo. They know very well what the situation’s like! Those in charge at the hospital prepared everything that was necessary for the construction of new pavilions in Stara Gora. All the plans and all the documentation. And now it's all just gathering dust tucked away in drawers.

Initial estimates have put the price of the new facilities at around eight hundred thousand euros. That price would now be higher. When we last spoke to the director of the Šempeter hospital, Darko Žiberna, he seemed to have already lost hope: "We've done all we could. Now on the move are the responsible ministry and state. They are the financers. They have the funds and they have to open them up. Our hospital can't pull off that kind of investment on its own." Those at the Ministry of Health who do care about the situation in Stara Gora have also (almost) given up hope… However – they are persistent. They’ve opened a special bank account to collect money for new pavilions in Dergančevo, Stara Gora.

Children with cerebral palsy or other disorders of the central nervous system, damages to the spinal cord and peripheral nervous system, with neuromuscular diseases or epilepsy are treated at Stara Gora. Part of the department is intended for the most seriously ill patients, which need special medical attention and intensive neuro physiotherapy. Those children stay for treatment for several years. They lie in worn out, cramped and totally unfitting shacks - "pavilions". The medical staff performs all the therapies in the same difficult conditions.

Parents trust Stara Gora

Everything that happens in Stara Gora – from the struggle to get decent hospital facilities instead of shacks, to the statutory changes and distinctions between health programs and special pedagogic programs - confuses the parents of the seriously ill children. What they want is peace and good medical, therapeutic, and special pedagogic care.

In one of the pavilions we met Tanja Rep from Gornja Radgona. She was by the bed of her seriously ill daughter in one of the worn out shacks. Let her words reach all those who decide about the faith of the children in Stara Gora: "My 19-year-old immobile and very seriously ill daughter has been in Stara Gora for two years now. Before that we were at home, but I couldn't take care of her on my own any more. It's easier since she's been here in Stara Gora. I'm able to be here by her side, with her… I totally trust all the staff here – from the doctors to the nurses and everyone else who takes care of my girl and all the other children. Their work is remarkable! They're angels! Please enable our children, enable us and all those wearing the white and blue coats, who fly like angels around our children, to spend our days in Stara Gora in normal conditions. Without the stress and concern whether we can still be here or not… Without the fear of what's going to happen to these worn out shacks… Without fear for the future! The present is already difficult enough!"