Priceless Support For Every Family
Support for parents
The terrifying diagnosis of cancer and the subsequent months are difficult for everyone in the family, not just the patient. Caregivers and siblings face anxiety and debilitating fear regarding, but not limited to, finances, death, being capable of caring for the sick child, and more.
There are massive shifts in the family dynamic, and parents and children have trouble articulating how they feel about it.
At Zichron Menachem, we offer counseling, support groups led by qualified therapists, and one-on-one therapy sessions to help parents and healthy siblings pool their resources, discuss and process their feelings, and develop healthy coping strategies.
Transportation program
Our House of Dreams Day Center is open all day for the children with cancer and every afternoon for their siblings.
However, since the parents are usually too preoccupied to bring their children to the center, Zichron Menachem provides transportation. Children with cancer are transported from the hospital/home and back, and their siblings are brought straight from school to the center and home in the evening.
We have a specialized vehicle for children with physical limitations due to cancer so they can join the activities and therapies at the House of Dreams Day Center, too.
Medical services program
As part of the emotional support that we provide for children with cancer, their siblings, and their parents, we support and attend to the physical needs of the children with cancer.
The Mobile Medical Clinic (The Dreamobile)
Mounted on a truck, the Dreamobile provides combined solutions for holidays, camps, and fun days. The Mobile Medical Clinic includes blood laboratories, a portable ultrasound and X-ray imaging System, an Infrared Vein Finder device, and other diagnostic and treatment equipment.
The clinic can treat eight patients simultaneously across two examination areas, and it is fitted with a hydraulic lift to facilitate the loading and offloading of heavy equipment.
In addition, there are toilet facilities, a shower, a kitchenette, four folding beds, two transfusion armchairs, and a refrigerator for drugs requiring specific temperature control.
The Blood Components Database
The chemotherapy and radiation that cancer patients undergo leave them with compromised immune systems and blood clotting mechanisms, which puts them at risk of significant bleeding.
The children need a blood transfusion that includes red and white blood cells and platelets.
Zichron Menachem is the only organization in Israel that has built a database of approximately 2,000 pre-verified donors who would willingly donate lifesaving blood components to pediatric cancer patients on short notice. We provide transportation, as well as a light meal, to the volunteers.
The Clinic of Hope
The Clinic of Hope in the House of Dreams Day Center enables oncological patients to seek a second opinion from some of Israel’s most acclaimed oncologists and researchers for counseling in both conventional and unconventional medicine.
This kind of integrated medicine has a unique high potential to extend life and may even lead towards recovery. Parents with little or no treatment plan for their children come for free and leave with a new plan and hope that their child may just survive the terrible illness.
Portable Blood Collecting and Analyzing Center
Using our top-notch, innovative equipment, we can test sick children’s blood in a non-invasive manner to immediately and without pain detect the source of a sudden soreness or deterioration.
We also have a noninvasive Complete Blood Count Portable Machine (a CBC Analyzer), that, in a few seconds, unlike in hospitals, can supply results that may even prevent unnecessary hospitalization.
The petting zoo
Children dealing with cancer- and their siblings- hold an unimaginable amount of anxiety, pain, and stress inside of them. If unaddressed, these children turn to drugs and alcohol, develop uncontrollable anger issues and other anti-social behaviors, and drop out of school way too early.
We have professional, qualified animal therapists who come twice a week to use the animals in our petting zoo to help children manage their turbulent emotions.
We have birds, hamsters, chinchillas, rabbits, and gerbils in our shed that the children feed, tenderly care for, and play with. Along with the therapists, they express their fears, process their difficult emotions, and find happiness and peace again.
The Chavrutah Big Brother program
Healthy siblings may not need physical support like their sick siblings, but they need emotional support more than ever.
When a family goes through a medical crisis, all attention is diverted to the sick child, with the siblings lacking regular routine, parental guidance, academic assistance, and love and attention.
The Chavrutah/ Big Brother program matches up young married men with younger boys.
The Big Brothers are in contact with the teachers at school to help their young charges stay up-to-date in their learning. They shower the children with the love, support, security, and attention that they crave to help them get through this horrible chapter in their lives.
