The foundation collected money via the website for a surgery of a young boy but did not hand it over to the family, Tomáš Mácha of ĽudiaĽuďom.sk informed the SITA newswire. The family of Damián, aged eight months, had to scrapped the planned surgery due to lack of finances.
The foundation however rejected the charges, and claimed in its statement provided to SITA that it the family will receive the money by the end of this month.
The boy was born with six fingers on his left hand which causes him enormous problems. The sixth finger can be removed by a surgery but this is financially demanding for his parents. His mother, Petra Beňaková, thus agreed with the offer coming from the foundation and in two-and-a-half months, 38 donors gave a total of €372 for the treatment.
The money should have been given to Beňaks, according to an agreement between the family and a representative of Nadácia Tatry, Boris Kulík. In October 2014, the call for donating money ended, but to this day, Petra Beňaková received no money for surgery. She tried several times to contact Kulík but in vain. Representatives of the website failed, too, to contact the foundation, SITA wrote on February 17.
“We did not find them in the alleged residence, nobody ever heard of them in the house,” Elena Šingliarová of ĽudiaĽuďom told SITA. “Meanwhile, they also cancelled their website and their profile on Facebook,” she added.
One of the goals when establishing the ĽudiaĽuďom.sk was to bring more transparency for donors, said Roland Kyška, the head of the non-profit organization.
As the steps of the foundation’s representatives threatened the surgery of Damián, the website’s representatives decided to offer the amount – €372 – on their own. His mother also made her own call to people on ĽudiaĽuďom.sk, the donation from which will go directly to her account.
"The reason for delay was that the endowment and founding documents of the foundation were stolen," Nadácia Tatry wrote in the statement, as quoted by SITA.
The organsation also said it had lost negotiations with the representatives of ĽudiaĽuďom.sk and try to settle the conflict.
