Let's raise €10,000 for the only end-of-life care in Serbia!

Hospices of Hope (HoH) is the only UK charity dedicated to the development of palliative and end-of-life care in South-East Europe. Their vision is for all patients suffering from terminal or life-limiting illnesses to have access to specialist hospice care services, free of charge – because everyone deserves to live and die with dignity and without pain.

BELhospice in Belgrade became HoH’s partner in 2006 and is still the only NGO in Serbia offering free of charge specialist palliative care. And yet, Serbia has the highest cancer mortality rate in Europe.

Usually in Serbia, when a patient’s treatment is completed, they are left to go home to their families who would then care for them until the end of their life, with no support from the health or social care system. BELhospice is working to change this.

The Car Project for BELhospice

BELhospice carers spend most of their time and effort reaching those in desperate need of palliative care living at home, sometimes over 60km away. At the moment, BELhospice only has two cars, for which fundraising was done in the past. As for the long sought after third vehicle, BELhospice raised c. 5,000 Euros and they need c. 14,000 Euros to make the vital purchase.

Over the years I have fundraised for HoH and BELhospice on a number of occasions, mostly by marathon running and contributing to their annual events.

In New York this November 2nd, I will be running my last marathon, thus fulfilling one of my lifelong dreams. As such, my fundraising goal is quite formidable: I AM ATTEMPTING TO RAISE 10,000 EUROS FOR BELhospice’s third car purchase!

Bonus!!!! A very kind group of family and friends, that have supported this cause for many years have set me an additional challenge - should I help BELHospice cross the 10,000 Euros mark, they will throw in the rest!

The goal is to raise funds by November 15th, so that we can fund the vehicle purchase before the prices go up with inflation!

THANK YOU / HVALA

More on BELhospice

In 2017 BELhospice was officially recognised and licensed by the Government of Serbia. This is a major step and acknowledged the international standard of the services provided by the team. And yet, there is no state or limited state funding available.

BELhospice offers home-care services in Belgrade and in 2018 a hospice care centre was opened and a palliative day-care service was added – the first in the country. Services in the day care centre include health check-ups, medication advice, psycho-social therapies, creative art workshops, and hair and beauty treatments. These services are very important for oncology patients as they bring them a better quality of life and they feel accepted and cared for by the community. It is also helpful for their families as they can take a break from everyday care of the patients. From 2022, BELhospice began a children’s project, making it the only organisation in Serbia to provide palliative care services at home for children.