Child excitedly holding a « Shapka » in the playroom of a paediatric hospital
A Moment of Warmth
Orthodox Easter Celebrations in a Paediatric Hospital
In Kharkiv, resilience is the watchword. Daily life must be adapted, and every opportunity to live and smile must be seized. In a hospital in the country’s second-largest city, Easter celebrations become a bulwark that prevents the war from stopping life.
When the two volunteers enter, the room is filled with children shouting and playing on small, multi-colored plastic tables or on a large play mat featuring cheerful and colourful animals. The average age is five years. Busy with bricks, fire trucks, or dolls, the children pay no attention to the medical staff who are busy receiving the volunteers and their boxes.
Today, the palliative care unit of the Kharkiv paediatric hospital receives its traditional Shapkas for Easter. These are small cylindrical cakes with a thick, browned crust, a soft interior, and a top garnished with frosting and sprinkles. « Here, 150 children are being treated for incurable diseases, some are neurological, others tend to degenerate, » explains a nurse in charge of welcoming the volunteers.
As the volunteers take the Shapkas out of the boxes, the paediatric staff begin to bring the few mothers sitting on the sofas lining the room. One by one, they come to collect their cakes with their children, and the photo sessions begin. In groups or individually, with or without nurses, the mothers pose in front of the volunteers’ camera.
For the volunteers in Ukraine, the photo is primarily proof of a transaction or donation, but it is also a very important means of communicating and soliciting donors for their activities. For the mothers, they alternate between appreciating the immortalization of a moment with their children and the neutral pose of the obligatory passage of a transaction. As for the children, none of these matters, there is a photographer!
For the smiling medical staff, the goal achieved is elsewhere. « Our primary mission is to put smiles on the faces of the children every day, » explains the nurse. Despite the explosions and the war, these children must continue to play and laugh. « Their primary care is not to feel the war.«
Further down the corridors, some children wait for their Shapkas in hospital beds. Some will spend their lives in these beds. In a more intimate atmosphere, the head of the department, a tall blonde woman with a determined stride, receives the volunteers. Sitting opposite a mother, she gently holds a slightly different child. A five-year-old with simple motor skills and brown hair, opening his mouth and hazel eyes wide at the entrance of the volunteers.
In a country where religion and traditions are important, this morning is an « opportunity for families to come together and create bonds with their children. » Especially when communication is primarily through gestures. This gives these mothers a way to create an anchor point for their children.
Separate ward of the hospital
« We have worked every day since the beginning of the war, without ever stopping, » proudly explains the nurse serving as an intermediary. « Including in 2022, when the Russians were besieging the city, just a few blocks away. » Among one of the corridors, the nurse opens a door leading to stairs that go down. « If necessary, we have an underground bunker to continue hospitalizations.«
The walls of the staircase are light and filled with large stickers depicting dancing animals. Down the steps succeeds an alligator, a frog, a bear, and other animal characters. In the basement, a dormitory is set up in a large room. On the white walls, posters and stickers of cartoon characters welcome the children. It is only then that an adult’s gaze notices the more austere aspect given by the ceiling pipes and the metal bed frames.
The hospital runs an educational program for its children, « the superhero school, » which they provide in person as much as possible. Thus, at the end of the large room, tables, chairs, a screen, and a cupboard are set up. « Even in the event of a serious alert, we can continue the children’s education, » concludes the nurse.
Shelter of the paediatric hospital
Back on the surface, sitting in an armchair among the hospital’s blue corridors, the nurse acknowledges that all the children endure a lot of traumas. « Every day is a new trauma for each child, » he exclaims. Indeed, in Kharkiv, sirens sound daily, and explosions are regular. « All this leads to an accumulation of trauma.«
For children, « smiles are the cushions that protect from all these traumas, » concludes the nurse. Thus, « each celebration is an opportunity to smile and forget the war, » if only for a moment.
At man’s height, between the lines — Little Frenchy
20/04/2025