Highcliffe Nursing Home care worker gives up flat to Ukrainians

Highcliffe Nursing Home senior support worker Kasia Rudzinska can empathise with the predicament of Ukrainian refugees for her family home in Poland is just a four-hour car journey from the border.

And after hearing heart-breaking stories from her coalminer husband Krysztof and two daughters, she has agreed to give up a flat attached to their property in the city of Zabrze to a Ukrainian woman and her three children.

Mrs Rudzinska, who works at Highcliffe eight months a year, living in Poland the rest of the time, has also encouraged her colleagues and the local community to support Help from Bournemouth to Ukraine.

The Kingsley Healthcare run home in Stuart Road, Highcliffe, has collected items ranging from sleeping bags, hats and scarves to toys, colouring books and toothpaste.

Mrs Rudzinska said: “Everyone knows about the large number of refugees trying to find shelter in Poland. However, not everyone knows they are mothers with children, the disabled and elderly.

“Most of them became homeless after crossing the border; they have nowhere to go and cannot communicate as they cannot speak Polish.

“At this time of the year the temperature drops down to -6C at night. “

She said in these circumstances it was “completely natural and a unanimous decision” to open the door of their flat to refugees.

“We welcomed a lovely lady called Oksana with her three children Ewa, 10, Nastyia, 11, and Denis, 16,” she said.

“They cannot speak Polish but fortunately she is an English teacher so we can speak English. Her husband is a policeman in Ukraine.

“She does not know how long they will be in Poland but strongly believes the terrible time will end some day and she will be able to take the children back home.”

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Author: Stephen Pullinger