Brno will soon have a new hospice that will care for terminally ill children and young people from the moment of the diagnosis, providing palliative cures. The Home for Julia (‘Dům Pro Julii’) will be one of the first facilities of its kind in the Czech Republic.
Palliative treatments for the young cover a larger timespan than for adults and are therefore calculated in terms of years rather than days or months.
Family members often lack institutional support and there are fewer hospital places for young terminally ill people, therefore facilities like the Home For Julia can offer huge support in these cases.
The three-story building with an inner atrium is located in a quiet area around the garden of the Kociánka retirement home. Thanks to the architectural design by the Čtyřstěn studio, it fits harmoniously into the surroundings, even utilising the surrounding slope, into which the house was built. Through the residence’s roof, it is possible to walk from the neighbourhood straight into the home.
The Home for Julia has 10 rooms for patients, eight of which are intended for residential relief services. While the young patients stay in the hospice, their parents will be able to rest. The other two rooms will function as hospice beds for terminally ill patients. There will also be separate accommodation facilities for parents and siblings and a final farewell apartment.
In addition to the private rooms, there will also be a common room and spaces for various types of therapy, including art therapy, music therapy, snoezelen, and other rehabilitation methods.
Construction began in August 2022 and will be completed this June. Originally the plan was scheduled to take 15 months, but this was extended to 20.5 months, as builders encountered several unforeseen issues.
The first was the discovery of a landfill, which had to be disposed of professionally, and subsequently, unstable subsoil was detected both in the premises of the building and in the outdoor paved areas. The site therefore had to be excavated and replaced with load-bearing material.
The last works are currently underway, mainly outside, where the road, parking lot, and landscaping are being finished. Inside, the final details are being completed to get everything ready for the building handover.
The total cost of the construction, which was overseen by the City of Brno, reached CZK 184.5 million without VAT. A substantial part of the costs were covered by a CZK 86 million subsidy from European funds, while the rest came from the city budget.
Subsequently, the building will be handed over to the Home for Julia non-profit organisation, which will run the hospice and continue providing respite care and home care directly in clients’ homes.
