Even though
our mother’s wishes were to remain at home, there would have been
no choice if it had not been for Yad Sarah. How could we obtain
the expensive equipment that helped to maintain her at home -
the hospital bed, air mattress, intravenous feeding equipment,
etc.? When we turned to Yad Sarah, they even gave us the option
of borrowing a motorized chaise lounge to help her sit up when
not in her bed.
Now she
could spend this precious time at home with us despite the protests
of doctors and nurses who said that it couldn’t be done. There
are many scientific studies that show how reliable home-care is
preferable to hospitalization for the patient’s well being and
state of mind, but without a free loan service like Yad Sarah,
such an option would only be theoretical.
Yad Sarah
is perhaps the biggest free loan service in the world. It loans
out 350,000 pieces of medical equipment a year and has six thousand
people registered as volunteer workers. These numbers are growing
daily as Yad Sarah continually adds to its seventy-five branches
all over Israel.
Almost
everyone in Jerusalem is introduced to Yad Sarah at some point
in their daily lives, whether they need an electric nursing pump
for a nursing mother, a vaporizer, crutches for a broken leg,
or transport for an elderly parent in a specially equipped van.
It seems that nearly every wheelchair that one sees has the now
familiar Yad Sarah logo painted on its side.
At their
office in downtown Jerusalem, we were amazed to learn about the
range of services that Yad Sarah offers. In addition to their
free loaning of medical equipment, they install emergency beepers
in the homes of the elderly, run laundry services for the incontinent
who are being cared for at home, operate day-care centers for
the handicapped, and even teach the home-bound how to operate
a computer and care for their plants.
Delegations
have been coming from foreign countries to study how Yad Sarah
works and to see if it can be duplicated. The Federal Employment
and Guidance Center in New York has formed a partnership with
Yad Sarah to establish a similar organization in the United States.
It’s hard to believe that this empire of free loaning was started
by one man who needed the use of an electric inhalator for his
child.
Uri Lupolianski
was that man, and his home-based free loan began over twenty years
ago when he started lending out the inhalator as soon as he no
longer needed it. It had been difficult to purchase on his salary
as a mathematics teacher, but he had no choice, and he wanted
to help other people who might find themselves in a similar bind.
When people
saw that he was loaning out equipment, he began to receive donations
of other medical items that he kept stored in his house. The free
loaning operation moved to a small storeroom in his building when
it outgrew his apartment, and eventually he received the use of
a wooden shed on the grounds of the Bikur Cholim Hospital.
Uri had
to expand his free loan operation constantly to meet the need
for wheelchairs, hospital beds, and other home care items. The
Israel Railways donated an old railway car to house some of the
equipment, and other storerooms were found in various locations
around Jerusalem. His organization got a big boost when Uri’s
father gave him the money he received from Germany for reparations
in the war. Uri’s grandmother Sarah had perished in the Holocaust,
and that’s why Uri named his free loan Yad Sarah.
The growth
of Yad Sarah and its tremendous success have been breathtaking.
The list of Yad Sarah’s services is constantly growing as new
and innovative ideas are put into practice by its staff that is
largely volunteer. Even their accountants and lawyers are volunteers.
The wheelchairs and other medical equipment are maintained and
repaired by volunteers. Yad Sarah helps so many people that they
want to find ways to help in return.
Yad Sarah’s
budget of nearly seven million dollars is entirely raised by contributions.
The organization saves the Israeli economy around two hundred
and fifty million dollars a year in hospitalization and long-term
care costs. What started as a one-man free loan service has generated
a revolution in home care.
When our
mother needed to be temporarily admitted to the hospital for certain
medical procedures that could not be done at home, Yad Sarah transported
her in a specially equipped van, and it was Yad Sarah that brought
her home. The young volunteer who drove the van and accompanied
her to the hospital room was extremely attentive, seeing that
her comfort and safety were at a maximum.
Another
volunteer whom we were never privileged to meet had a significant
impact on our decision to keep our mother at home. During our
phone conversations, she shared with us her valuable experience
with the situation we were facing, and she gave us the encouragement
that we needed in order to feel confident that we had made the
right decision.
In speaking
to her, we had the feeling that it was not just a matter of “our”
mother’s comfort and well being. It was as if this woman on the
other end of the phone, Shoshi, was also a member of our
family.
One delegation
that studied Yad Sarah arrived at the conclusion that such a gigantic
volunteer organization could only work in a place like Jerusalem,
which is like one big extended family. Normally, cities as big
as Jerusalem tend towards anonymity, and it is not unusual when
residents of the same apartment building hardly know each other.
Jerusalem
is an exception. Here, a person’s needs are not just his own private
affair, but they become the concern of everyone in his orbit.
The suffering of one individual is felt by everyone; that’s how
Yad Sarah got started, and that’s why it has had such a tremendous
impact. It has to do with hearts that are open and can still feel
how someone else hurts. Yad Sarah’s phenomenal success might stem
from the nature of its home base - Jerusalem - which is more heart
than city.
