Making Dying Dreams Come True In Murcia

By George Stephens • Published: 12 Oct 2019 • 17:12

A group of volunteers in Murcia are using an ambulance to take terminally ill patients that would otherwise be impossible for them to reach.

The project is inspired by Kees Veldboer, a Dutch ambulance driver when in 2007 agreed to take retired seaman to Rotterdam harbour. After making a few calls and borrowing an ambulance, Veldboer was able to make Seaman happy for a few hours and see out his dying wish to say goodbye to his beloved port.

Veldboer went on to create the Stichting Ambulance Wens foundation just 2 months later.

The Murcia health workers brought the founder to a conference in Spain in 2018 and said “We liked his initiative so much we decided to do the same thing here,”

The Ambulance of Wishes has been operating for just over a year now.

“The wishes are a way of giving back, and people are very keen to take part,” explained Laura Juguera and Carolina Cánovas, founders of the project in Spain.

They cited some examples of many,

An 82 old lady, was able to see her home town in Cáceres, in Spain’s western, for one last time before passing away.

Parents of a baby called Hugo, an 11-month old with fatal illness, were granted their wish for him to see the sea.

A terminally sick boy who wanted to return to his home country of Ecuador and die surrounded by his family was able to overcome the travelling challenges associated with his wish by being transferred while wired up to machines and medication.

The Ambulance of Wishes has very few conditions when it comes to granting peoples wishes.

Anyone can ask for a wish via their website, as long as it is for emotional reasons, and the person in question cannot move on their own and needs an ambulance states José Manuel Salas, an emergency room doctor and another of the founders, he went on to say that granting wishes creates very special and emotional moments. “You have to accompany them and know how to listen, not just be standing there,” he stated.