A horse-riding trip, a meeting with former colleagues or a return to a beloved place. “We are ready to fulfill various wishes, but people at the end of their lives want to experience rather ordinary things – to see someone they can’t, visit their birthplace or the place where they got married with their partner,” Igor Kytka, co-founder of the Sanitka project, lists the wishes that he fulfills wishes to terminally ill and immobile patients.
The Wish Ambulance started traveling all over the Czech Republic only in mid-January, but it has already traveled twenty times in total. “As part of the very first wish, we took the client home, where the whole extended family was waiting for him on his birthday. He was very happy,” recalls Kytka with a smile. For him, the quality of life of people confined to bed for a long time is a fundamental topic of the project.
The ambulance crew is always made up of healthcare professionals – paramedics, nurses, the team also includes doctors. Clients can play their favorite music in the vehicle and it is designed so that they have a view from the inside. “We wanted the experience to be the same as the journey, so we drive slowly,” explains Kytka.
Two relatives can ride with long-term patients in the ambulance, and other people can accompany them in another vehicle. Kytka admits that the fulfillment of wishes is sometimes emotionally strained. “Sometimes even tears flow. It’s definitely mentally demanding, because many clients are in very bad health. But the volunteers can work with it, they know similar situations from their regular work,” he says.
They believe that the fulfillment of wishes helps both the sick and their loved ones, who realize the finitude of life and say goodbye more easily. “For clients, it can be a diversion from a long stay in an institution, for a while they might forget about their condition. Sometimes families thank us in return that their relative talked about it for another week or that it improved their mood,” he says. A policeman who wanted to see his colleagues for the last time stuck in his memory. “The next day, his wife wrote to say thank you very much and that he had left them at night,” he says.
The ambulance shouldn’t leave “in five to twelve”
Kytka is convinced that families and loved ones often fulfill the last wishes of patients, but only within the limits of the possibilities they have at the time. “This means, for example, they want to read the newspaper for the last time or have their favorite meal. But we can fulfill wishes such as seeing their favorite band for the last time, if the client’s health allows it. In short, something that is not possible in a hospital or a nursing home ,” explains.
At the same time, however, he points out that he does not want people to interpret the service necessarily only as the fulfillment of a last wish. “For many clients, it really is the last wish, but it doesn’t have to be. It could simply be a client for whom the situation has been difficult for a long time. We can be contacted by people whose grandmother or grandfather has not been away from their home for years due to their health condition or home for the elderly,” gives an example. In addition, the patient’s condition may deteriorate to such an extent that the crew is no longer able to fulfill his wish. “That’s why it’s good to deal with it in time, people shouldn’t take it as a service “for five to twelve”. We take it in such a way that we can fulfill some bigger wishes, and then there’s still room for some smaller ones that they won’t need us for,” he says.
In addition, the ambulance does not work in standby mode also so that the client can enjoy his trip. “We want to fulfill wishes in a calm and unhurried way, the client always has the whole day to fulfill his wishes,” he says. Although the service works all over the Czech Republic, there is only one vehicle so far, because the purchase of an ambulance costs in the order of millions of crowns. It is therefore always necessary to complete the crew and logistically solve the transfer of the ambulance. Paramedics themselves have a time-consuming job, and Kytka, together with Daniel Karták, the other founder of the Wish Ambulance, are looking for volunteers who are currently free.
Kytka and Karták also cooperate with hospitals, LDN, hospice or homes for the elderly so that the staff can initiate the fulfillment of wishes – either because the person in question has no relatives who would fulfill the wish for him, or because the family does not know about the service. Institutions are currently initiating almost half of the fulfilled wishes.
People die in institutions because of lack of information
The pair was inspired by a similar project that Karták recorded during his stay in Israel. When they found out more about it, they learned that the concept comes from the Netherlands, where a similar ambulance has been operating since 2007. The founders of the Wish Ambulance then went on an internship to the Netherlands, where they learned how the Wish Ambulance works in practice. They also bought an older ambulance from the Dutch team, because at first they put their own money into the project, and a new one would have cost several million. In the Czech Republic, they subsequently found out all the information regarding legislation and other requirements. “And we discovered that there was no problem with the implementation, which is why we were surprised that nothing similar had worked here before,” he says.
Currently, Kytka and Karták are planning to purchase another ambulance so that they can more easily fulfill wishes throughout the country. Financially, they only rely on occasional donations, so they also think about the sustainability of their operations. “We would need the financing to be more predictable,” explains Kytka. At the same time, he plans that when the project becomes more stable, the Wish Ambulance will also devote itself to education about palliative care and care for the long-term sick. “Many people die in homes for the elderly, for example, because their loved ones do not have time for care or cannot afford not to work. But they often do not know about support services and organizations that enable home care,” he outlines.
