The 12-bed hospice house in Trnovo borough opened in December 2010 in a house renovated by the city that was donated by a local resident.

For almost five years it was run by the Slovenian Hospice Association, but it was shut down in mid-2015 due to lack of funding.

Several attempts were made to secure extra funding, but the various stakeholders were unable to find common ground.

Late last year the house was bought for EUR 2.5m by Ljubhospic, a non-profit set up by the city-owned pharmacy chain Lekarne Ljubljana, despite protests by the NGO that had run is before.

The hospice is opening with four full-time employees and three part-time workers.

Despite being owned by the profitable pharmacy chain, its funding remains precarious.

Marjan Sedej, the director of Ljubhospic, told the press on Friday that expenditure was budgeted at EUR 483,000 for this year.

But this includes funding projected to come from a Health Ministry open call for palliative care, which has been promised but not yet published.

To hedge against that, Ljubhospic signed a guarantee agreement that secures funding by default from the Ljubljana budget.