Some dreams can't wait. Help keep our ambulance on the road

Some dreams are running out of time

People who have reached the end of their life’s journey have dreams and wishes they will no longer have time to fulfil. They are seriously ill and do not have the strength for it. We help them fulfil the dreams that mean so much to them. We are healthcare professionals and paramedics, so we can take them one last time to the people they love, to the places where they were happy, or even to a concert by their favourite band. Simply anywhere they want to see one more time.

With our three fully equipped ambulances we travel the length and breadth of the country, and when it is needed we go beyond its borders as well.

Those who come to us have simple wishes. The kind a healthy person would not think twice about and would simply go and do. For them, though, their condition makes it an insurmountable obstacle – and that is where we step in and help them make that last journey and that last wish happen.

Verunka’s dreams

Sweet sixteen. Except that life has given this young lady precious little that is sweet. Through the very serious illness she is going through, there is something so pure, so kind and so strong about her that we wish you could meet her. She can speak about the prognosis of her illness with a courage and composure that takes an adult’s breath away.

Verunka would like to be a nurse or a doctor. When she sees everything the nurses manage and how they care for her, she would like to be in their shoes one day and help others too. Medicine fascinates her and the world of operating theatres draws her in. At the same time, Verunka loves horses. And so we decided that this time we would not choose, and we would grant her both dreams.

We could not capture the look in Verunka’s eyes when she was allowed behind the scenes of the operating theatres and got to watch a major operation, but we will remember it for ever. Her meeting with the horses was much the same. Almost without words, in a silence in which everything was said. There was tenderness in it, and calm, and enormous strength. These, after all, are not ordinary horses. They are horses that heal.

Verunka’s mother still believes in a miracle, and we are with her in that.

Fishing one last time

František was a passionate angler. A serious illness gradually took his strength and confined him to bed. His legs hurt so unbearably that he could not leave the house. He was cared for by the PAHOP home hospice, which accompanied him through that difficult time. When we met him, it was immediately clear what he loved most. Fishing. He even kept his reels beside the bed and practised with them faithfully, so that his angler’s world would not disappear altogether.

František’s family got in touch to ask whether we could give their loved one what he longed for most – to see the water just once more. So we set out. And everyone was already waiting there for him – family, friends, and even the nurses from the hospice who cared for him so lovingly. František sat quietly by the water and simply smiled, contented. As if he were taking in every glint of sunlight, every breath of wind and every moment spent with the people closest to him. To this day we do not know what was going through his mind, but we felt that the day meant a great deal to him. And so it did for everyone else who was there – the family was moved, the nurses were moved, even the lady who keeps the pond. A few weeks passed after our trip to the pond, and František died.

But the story of the quiet angler is not an exception. We have hundreds of journeys like it behind us, and behind every one of them stands someone who was not afraid to pick up the phone and get in touch.

Why we are asking for your help

We fulfil dreams for our clients and their families free of charge. We cover everything, from running the ambulances to the crew and the medical supplies. We are helped by your donations, foundation grants and support from the regional authorities. We are grateful for all of it, but the contributions come irregularly and cannot be counted on in advance. But we do need to plan. It happens that a hospice calls on a Wednesday afternoon to say a wish needs to be granted this very week. Sometimes every single day counts if we are to grant a wish in time. For the ambulances to keep going out next year as well, and to grant wishes to those who are hoping for them, we need to know the money will be there.

The real stories of our clients and the work of the people behind their dreams are captured in the Czech Television documentary Do posledního snu (To the Last Dream).

The project is also held under the patronage of the President of the Czech Republic.

The project’s founder, Petra Homolová, received the Silver Medal of the President of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic.

How we will use the money

From the very beginning it has mattered to us that we do our work honestly, with empathy and professionalism, and that our clients receive proper medical care. Sadly, that costs something. Those costs are carried by Ruce pro život, z. s., the association that runs the Dreams Come True Ambulance.

Your donations will help cover the costs of the individual journeys and the background work without which no wish could be granted.

What you give us pays for running the ambulances, fuel, servicing, repairs and insurance, the time and work of the medical crew, medical supplies, equipment and oxygen, and admission fees, accommodation and other costs arising from the particular dream and the client’s medical needs.

But it also covers what nobody sees. Medical, technical and administrative staff, maintenance and repair of equipment, and the association’s other running costs. Without those, no ambulance would ever go out.

Thanks to you we can fulfil the dreams of those who have reached the end of their journey, whatever a family can afford to give.

If you can, please give. If you cannot, please pass this fundraiser on. That helps us too. Thank you.

How it all began

Behind the Dreams Come True Ambulance stands the paramedic Petra Homolová. The first impulse to start something like it came while she was still working for the emergency medical service. A woman got in touch, asking to accompany her seriously ill husband, a sommelier, to a wine tasting. Petra took to the idea at once and began arranging the journey. Sadly, he did not live to see it.

Petra Homolová then founded the Dreams Come True Ambulance project and still leads it today.

She works with clients and their families, with hospices, hospitals, palliative care teams and everyone who has it in their power to grant a seriously ill person’s last wish. And as a paramedic she goes out on the journeys with her clients herself.

Granting a dream is not where our work ends

The Dreams Come True Ambulance is not a volunteer organisation – the association Ruce pro život, z. s., is a registered provider of emergency patient transport. We run it as a medical service with trained medical professionals, and that is what sets us apart from other similar initiatives. Every journey is prepared individually, always from scratch, exactly around the client’s medical condition and what the dream involves. Experienced paramedics go out, trained in the care of palliative patients and in communication, together with drivers qualified to drive emergency medical vehicles. When the client’s condition calls for it, a doctor comes with us.

We have travelled to very nearly every place in the Czech Republic, we have driven all over Slovakia, and we have been to Germany and Italy.

We fulfil dreams for seriously ill children, adults and older people, whatever their age.

Our work does not end when we arrive home. We stay close to every family even after their loved one has gone. We offer support from people who have been through a similar experience, and we accompany the bereaved.