Penza, 15 July 2015. PenzaNews. Pavel Astakhov, Children’s Rights Commissioner for the President of Russia, has visited the new children’s wing of the Penza regional dedicated clinical medical assistance center on Wednesday, July 15.

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During the tour through the new building, the children’s ombudsman saw a video reel about the history of the institution and inspected several departments of the hospital, where he met the mothers of the little patients and asked them about the conditions of the treatment.

Before the end of the visit, Pavel Astakhov asked about the numbers of children knowingly abandoned by their parents.

“We have few abandoned children. Almost everyone finds a new family at once. We have only one issue: children who have to stay here temporarily. If the mother has a problem of some kind, we take the newborn to the ‘Children’s Home’ to help her,” explained Marina Evstigneeva, head of the children’s medical care and birthing assistance department.

She also noted that a total of 17 children were born in the region with Down syndrome, and five of them were left by their parents.

“We worked with the parents, but they still decided to abandon the children,” she clarified.

In his turn, Pavel Astakhov noted the trend throughout Russia to leave children in foster care is decreasing.

“The children with facial deformities or Down Syndrome are abandoned most often. But the children with Down syndrome grow up no worse than the other kids if you teach them,” he said.

According to Pavel Astakhov, the situation requires a mass education campaign.

“It’s inhumane to abandon a child. They leave him for dead if the state does not take him,” the children’s ombudsman concluded.