This week, our EMS Hero goes to the Ambulance Wish Foundation (Stichting Ambulance Wens) a Netherlands charity that has granted nearly 6,000 wishes since it Kees Veldboer founded it in 2007.
We were particularly struck by the story that inspired him.
During a hospital transport, he asked an old man if there was anything he wanted to see while he was outside. The man told Veldboer he had sailed for many years when he was healthy, so Veldboer stopped by the canal.
“We stayed there for an hour on a beautiful sunny day, and tears of joy ran over his face due to this experience,” Veldboer said.
Veldboer promised to take the man sailing a final time. Working with a tour boat company and his boss, Veldboer was able to bring the patient on a stretcher aboard, for one last trip through the Rotterdam harbor.
Many of the patients and their wishes are chronicled on the foundation’s Facebook page.
Recently the foundation brought a terminally ill woman to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum for an in-demand Rembrandt exhibit.
“Our foundation adds a quality of life to (last) days,” Veldboer said.
And he adds quality of the health care profession.