Let's Help More Than 100 Children with Cancer

The team of Childhood Cancer Fund Rugute is happy to share with you all a report on what has been done in the last several months. Thanks to your generous hearts, during the past few months the fund received 3233,55 USD in donations.

Families raising a child diagnosed with cancer were provided monthly or one-time financial support under their requests, after the evaluation of the importance of requested help. When a child is diagnosed with an oncological illness, the financial situation of the family changes. Usually family’s income reduces significantly, because one of the parents has to stay with child during the entire length of hospitalization and cannot work for a prolonged period of time. The overall needs of the family increase substantially. What is more, other family members also try to spend as much time as possible with the child who is severely ill; therefore, in cases when a family resides at a greater distance from the city where the treatment facility is located, travel expenses increase as well.

The treatment of oncological illnesses often has a strong, ailing side effects; the medications required to reduce them are not always reimbursed by the state. Various nursing aid must also be purchased by patients’ families at their own cost. The families used the financial support provided by the fund to purchase the required medications, nursing equipment, food, to pay for travel expenses and other related costs. With your help, the children were given a chance for a better condition of their physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being, which are essential for the treatment’s success and child’s recovery.

All in all, we are incredibly grateful for your support. It was much needed for the sick children and it was used for these causes:

• 22 300 Eur – for financial support provided to families;
• 9 284 Eur – for buying needed medications;
• 958 Eur – for central vein catheters and their special needles;
• 1 088 Eur – for providing oral care supplies;
• 2 194 Eur – for various nursing equipment and supplies;
• 2 849 Eur – for genetic testing.

We are very grateful for the feeling that you all are holding our backs. Without you we would not be able to provide the needed support and childrens’ well-being would be much worse. Hands down, the feeling that children are not alone in this horrible battle with the illness are what they need the most. And you are creating that feeling with your open hearts! Thank you all!

When a little person is born, they carry both small and big dreams that encourage them to keep moving forward. Sometimes these dreams are crushed by an unexpected cancer diagnosis that falls on the shoulders of a young unprepared child. In a split second, the peaceful and normal life of the whole family is shaken up. After that, the young patient, along with one of their loved ones, open the hospital doors and set off on the path of one of the greatest and hardest trials of life.

Having been working with children for nineteen years, we have no doubt that the success of treatment is determined by many factors, but the most important of them is timely application of advanced treatment. Medicine is advancing every day, i.e., medication and medical devices, which cure diseases faster, are constantly being improved. Technologies that are used for performing tests and helping identify more accurate causes of diseases (which leads to more effective treatment) are also being improved. Unfortunately, the majority of the latest medications, tests and nursing equipment in Lithuania are not reimbursed by the state. As we accompany new sick children year after year, we try to fill this gap so that haematologists and oncologists treating children have every opportunity to prescribe the medicines and tests provided in the latest treatment protocols, or to send a young patient abroad for surgery if it is not available in Lithuania.

During the months of December, January and February, Rugute continued its activities and provided various support to children with oncological illnesses and to families who raise them.

We are grateful to all who contributed to the $ 4527,90 support for children with oncological illnesses through the GlobalGiving system during the months from December to February.

We are sincerely grateful that because of your support we were able to provide:

• 18,500 EUR – as financial support to families;

• 10,356 EUR – for medication;

• 1,463 EUR – for central vein catheters and suitable needles;

• 1,863 EUR – for oral care products;

• 2,166 EUR – for various nursing care produtcs and equipment.

We are very thankful for every person and institution who are supporting us not only financially, but with trust, love and kindness and warm heart for every little Lithuanian patient. We are very happy that your kind and open love creates an easier way for the little patients.