UMCH Charity Club hands over donation check to children’s hospice Sternenbrücke

On December 19, 2022, the handover of a donation check in the amount of € 1,000 took place at the Sternenbrücke children’s hospice in the Hamburg district of Rissen. The amount came about on the initiative of the UMCH Charity Club, which offered waffles and punch at the Holly Jolly Christmas Lunch events held on December 6 and 7 in the Cafeteria of the UMFST-UMCH Campus and accepted monetary donations in return.

On the occasion of the handover, Philipp Richter, a fourth-year student at UMFST-UMCH and member of the Charity Club, visited the children’s hospice and met with Thorben Nerge from the board of the palliative care facility. The latter accepted the check with great gratitude and gave Philipp a brief insight into the work of the institution, where children, adolescents and young adults as well as their relatives are comprehensively cared for, in some cases over a period of years. In addition to the children and their parents, siblings are also accompanied in their mourning process, educational services are offered and support with correspondence work is provided by the house’s own social lawyers. Thorben Nerge, whose mother Ute founded the children’s hospice in 2003 and thus opened the first inpatient facility of this kind in northern Germany, also emphasized the great importance of the interpersonal component in dealing with the young guests.

In the end, Philipp and Thorben Nerge discussed possible long-term support for the palliative care facility through the UMCH Charity Club – an idea that Philipp approached the Sternenbrücke board member with. After all, the children’s hospice is donation-financed and thus dependent on external support. In addition, there are an estimated 50,000 terminally and life-shortening ill children and adolescents in Germany, compared to only about 18 inpatient hospices for children, adolescents and young adults.

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