Older people’s rights violated for years at private care home in Kharkiv: Inspections yield no results
The rights of residents to safety, respect for human dignity and privacy, medical care and legal protection are being violated at the Oberih private care home for older people in Kharkiv, the Ombudsman’s Office of Ukraine reported. Inspections of the facility since 2023 have not improved the situation.
Photo credit: Ombudsman’s Office of UkraineA group from the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) visited the care home in 2023, 2025 and 2026. Violations of residents’ rights were recorded during each visit.
“Imagine: you place a loved one in a care home because they need constant help, care and safety. You expect such a facility to be under state control, and then it turns out: violations have been found here for years – and they do not disappear,” Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said.
He said that during the latest visit, monitors recorded violations of the right to life and safety, to respect for human dignity and privacy, to health protection and medical care, to an adequate standard of living, to accessibility for people with reduced mobility and to effective legal remedies.
Service contracts were signed not with the residents of the care home, but with their relatives or other people who had no legal grounds to represent their interests.
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“This is no longer just a matter of documents. Such a registration procedure may indicate the illegal placement of people in the facility and the violation of their right to liberty and security of person,” Lubinets noted.
In 2025, the National Social Service of Ukraine inspected the care home after a request from the Ombudsman’s Office and also found violations in the provision of social services. However, no positive changes were seen during the return visit.
According to Lubinets, the activities of private care homes must be under constant state control:
“The most important thing is that every person, regardless of age or state of health, feels not stripped of rights and dependent, but protected. This should be the result of the state’s work.”
Institutional care facilities for people with disabilities and older people, which are located on the outskirts of cities and next to industrial zones, have found themselves at risk during shelling. Their relocation to safer regions of Ukraine is urgent. The Fight For Right non-governmental organisation drew attention to this.
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