In healthcare, you get dumbed down over time
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Věra Včeláková, née Bílková, was born in Prešov, Slovakia on 11 December 1938 to Maria Bílková and Jan Bílek, a mixed Slovak-Czech couple. In 1939 the family moved to Úvaly near Prague where Věra Včeláková witnessed the Prague Uprising and the liberation. She graduated from the secondary medical school in Belgická Street in Prague. After graduation, she joined the Bulovka Hospital as a nurse in the gynaecological and obstetric department. She and her husband Jiří Včelák raised two sons. She joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) in the 1970s. During the normalisation period she and her family went to the West several times. She worked in the health sector all her life. In March 1991, doctors diagnosed her son Roman with leukaemia, to which he succumbed in 1992. One of the first post-1989 public fundraisers was organised for her son’s treatment. Věra Včeláková and her husband contributed to the establishment of the bone marrow donor registry. She was active in the HAIMA association which supported children with oncological and haemato-oncological diseases and their families. She lived in Prague in 2022.
