“Our mission is to help people with chronic diseases cope with their illness and loneliness by creating a platform of
responses to make their needs accessible, relieving loneliness, and conveying knowledge.”
The Ruth Vrobel Foundation (registration/foundation number 580568822) was established in 2003 by the Schneider and Vrobel families in memory of the late Mrs. Ruth Vrobel, who dealt with a chronic oncology disease.Israel is home to millions of people dealing with chronic diseases. In many of them, the disease harms the quality of life and negatively affects family and social life, the management of daily routines, and the conduct of the community
around them. Health and public health foundations in Israel provide advanced medical services and assist chronic patients in extending life expectancy, but it seems that in many other aspects – social and emotional – the systems in Israel still lack much information and resources.
The COVID crisis has exacerbated the loneliness epidemic, especially among chronically ill patients of advanced ages.
The forced disconnection from family members and the community created an emotional and physical strain for many of them that damaged their quality of life and sometimes even worsened the course of the disease. Thus, alongside coping with the illness, many chronic patients find themselves lonely and find it challenging to manage in the face of bureaucratic systems that do not adequately make the response they need accessible.
This is precisely where we come in. The foundation works to improve the quality of life of people with chronic diseases and their families in a series of
projects designed to provide a comprehensive and complementary response to advanced medicine. The foundation operates nationwide and cooperates with leading health foundations such as JDC ESHEL,the Nursing Division at the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Social Equality, the HMOs (Kupot Holim), academic institutions, local councils,
etc. Our foundation leads a proactive concept that identifies patients’ needs and connects them to health foundations and pillars in the community to produces a series of comprehensive solutions nationwide, an additional and complementary layer for public health and community care services in Israel. The series of projects we establish touch on a range of areas of life and operate in a variety of configurations and platforms – frontal meetings, individual emotional and social support of patients in a one-on-one format, group training for professionals’ teams and family members, activity in the digital space to make information accessible to patients, their families and more.
The association contains three central units.
Hibu”k – connecting Health and Community – making solutions and services accessible from the district and alleviating loneliness for people with chronic diseases, including the elderly who rarely leave the house given their medical condition. The activity is carried out through health and medical professions scholarship students such as nursing, social workers, medical students etc. We put our emphasis on individual and personalized contact for each
patient according to their needs promoting health.
KnowHow – Preparation and Training System – a unique educational unit for people with chronic diseases and their families. The information provided in the curriculum provides tools for managing the self-treatment of the illness and intensifies the patient’s sense of ability in coping with the management of the disease and with the medical world.
Social Tech – Technological Coverage – a digital unit that connects the foundation’s vision for infrastructure and practical technological tools, including digital HIBU’K – a unique system in development that will have many different capabilities, including an application for managing field and downward arrays in the various projects in the Hibu’k unit.
