Daily Phone-In Service and Appointment Scheduling

On an average evening, the phone at Magen Lacholeh will ring some 400 times between 5.00 p.m. and 1.00 a.m. This program is operated by warm and professional staff members trained to listen and ask the right questions.

This service spares patients, who are already in pain and suffering, the additional headache of scheduling appointments with multiple healthcare professionals at each medical institution nationwide and around the world. The logic behind this is that people with an understanding of the field and who have ongoing relationships with medical practitioners will be able to be more effective. Magen Lacholeh believes that efficient management is a significant help to most of the people who contact the organization, saving them the bureaucratic hassles and freeing them from having to negotiate with physicians and medical institutions when they are not equipped with the proper tools or knowledge. This service is also beneficial for the medical establishment, allowing them to handle technical and bureaucratic matters together with representatives of Magen Lacholeh, who understand how busy they are and are familiar with medical and technology terminology.

Counseling

Counseling helps families cope with their loved one's illness and needs by providing them with a complete background about all medical procedures, various syndromes related to the disease and terminology, as well as information about alternative therapies and treatments. Counseling is given in clear, simple terms, using everyday language. The goal is to get families to a point where they have the knowledge they need to get through this difficult period.

Patient Transportation

Some 30,000 men, women and children in Israel are confined to wheelchairs, among 82,000 who have physical handicaps. Another 61,700 are registered as disabled veterans and 15,000 more are legally blind. With terrorist attacks, military engagements and the bloody carnage on the country's roads - as well as an aging population - the number of physically challenged Israelis grows with every year.

Medical Equipment

For people like these, getting to a treatment center is a major challenge. This is why Magen Lacholeh provides a free transportation service, taking patients to and from medical appointments in its ambulances. With many of these vehicles equipped with respirators, incubators and other specialized life-support equipment, Magen Lacholeh carries not only the elderly and disabled, but also intensive-care patients and premature infants.

Need a walker or a wheelchair? What about an incubator or a ventilator? Modern medical equipment can cost thousands of dollars. Even when its price tag is not so expensive, locating and buying it can be beyond sick patients and their stressed families.

So Magen Lacholeh has built and maintains its own supply of specialized medical machinery and rehabilitation aids. In addition to supplying patients, Magen Lacholeh lends equipment to medical centers during emergencies, and often helps injured soldiers and terror victims while they are airlifted to hospitals and burn centers.

Treatment Abroad

Despite high levels of medical care in Israel, specialized treatment in advanced European or North American medical centers is the only alternative for a handful of patients.

For them and their families, who face not only the apprehension and fear of illness, but also coping with it far from home, Magen Lacholeh helps find the right hospitals and doctors abroad, makes the travel arrangements, and arranges accommodations for patients and their families near the hospital. For patients who cannot cover the costs, it provides full or partial funding, and approaches Israel's health insurers to help families recover their medical

Magen Lacholeh arranges travel and living accommodations for patients whose medical conditions require them to travel abroad for treatment. The organization pays close attention to the special needs of each patient and the family members traveling with them. Magen Lacholeh takes care of everything from the moment the patient leaves Israel, throughout their stay abroad, until they return to Israel.

Bureaucracy

Magen Lacholeh makes every effort to ensure that patients and families deal as little as possible with the overwhelming amount of bureaucracy and red tape in the medical establishment in Israel and abroad. We believe that that they have enough to deal with and therefore free them from having to cope with this as well. Magen Lacholeh also works with the major health insurance providers to help families recover as much of the costs of medical treatment as possible and to get more comprehensive when needed.