50 kopecks mean one hour without suffering

Incurable lung cancer gradually deprives a person of oxygen. Quite literally: the tumor blocks the bronchi and there is less and less room for inhaling. Many other tumors metastasize to the lungs, and the result is the same: the ill person gasps for breath. Stroke, heart failure again: it becomes difficult to breathe. When somebody lives his or her last days suffering from pain and shortness of breath, it is a common thing, isn't it? This stereotype is no longer tolerable! When the lungs and the heart cannot work properly, an oxygen concentrator can provide breathing. 

The cost of one such device together with the consumables and the technical service, if calculated with respect to working time, is 12 UAH per day and 50 kopecks per hour. One day, one hour without suffering. Tell me, could you pay for one day? The patients' families can't. Because they would have to pay the complete price. At the moment when the family resources have already been exhausted after earlier treatment when everything that could be sold has already been sold - in this situation, 13,000 hryvnias (the retail price of the device) to be paid right now is too much. We open fundraising for 28 b / h concentrators, 3 hubs-PORTATIVES and consumables to them (filters, cannulas, tubes, oxygen humidifiers, etc.) and 35 patient monitors. Why should you ask? Firstly, the price for them is half as much, and this does not affect either the quality, the operation of the devices, or the service. But, by buying cheaper, we are more likely to raise funds and can help more quickly and more people. Secondly, we buy second-hand "1st class" concentrators, which means that they have a minimum clockwork (less than 300 hours (each device has a counter), while they are designed for 40,000 hours of operation before the capital service).

It is difficult to say how many people they can help. For one patient, the concentrator will alleviate the suffering during the last days of his or her life. For another, it means the possibility to live several months or even several years longer, the possibility that would not exist in the other case. So, the oxygen support is both for the alleviation of suffering and for the prolongation of life.

One device with 40,000 hours of working time (or 4.5 years) till major repair, 12 UAH per hour. But what is the price of an extra hour of life? Every device that we buy saves such days and nights for five, maybe even for 20 people.

We are sure this is worth fighting for. Our aim is to get rid of the situations, in Kyiv or in Ukraine as a whole, when somebody gasps for breath at home all alone. Presently there are thousands of such people. They live nearby, maybe next door, maybe in buildings we walk by every day. They are there, and they fight for breath. It is time to change this.

If you can pay for at least one hour of breathing for one person, you can change the whole world.