Executive Summary Serbia Hospice Appeal

Making every day count for terminally ill cancer patients…

HONORARY PATRONS

HE Mr. Leo D’Aes, Belgium Ambassador to Serbia HE Mr. Denis Keefe, British Ambassador to Serbia HE Mr. Philip Pinnington, Canadian Ambassador to Serbia Mr. Tim Cartwright, Head of Mission, Council of Europe Mr. Andrea Simoncelli, CEO Generali Mr. James Thornley, GM and Senior Partner, KPMG Mr. Miloš Hamovic, Vice Chairman EFT Group Dr. Jasmina Knezevic, CEO Belmedic Mr. Ivica Koren, CEO Epilion Mr. Graham Perolls, Executive Director, Hospice of Hope Mr. Alex Padureanu, ExecutiveDirector, Hospice Casa Sperentei, Romania Dr. Natasa Milicevic, Founder of BELhospice Mr. Zoran Purkovic, Director, BELhospice Ms. Ivana Todorovic, Capital Campaign Manager

Summary BELhospice’ mission is to provide the best possible quality of life for terminally ill cancer patients and their families in Belgrade. During its first 10 years, the organization focused entirely on the on the development of home care services. The next decade will focus on the development of inpatient hospice services. This will start with the opening of the first specialist inpatient hospice in Belgrade by the end of 2017.

Hospice Care Hospice care (also called palliative care) is the holistic care of terminally ill patients and their families. It is a recognized medical specialty, treating the distressing symptoms which often accompany advanced cancer, especially pain.

Hospice cares for the whole person, not just their physical symptoms. Hospice doctors and nurses, along with social workers, physiotherapists, play therapists, psychologists, chaplains and volunteers are therefore trained to assess and assist with emotional, spiritual and social aspects of care.

Brief History and Current Situation In 2004, BELhospice founder Dr Natasa Milicevic, a cancer specialist in Belgrade for 25 years, had the short-term aim of teaching specialist palliative care in Serbia for the first time in the country’s history. She also started providing home-care services for patients with cancer and other malignant illnesses. Her longer-term aim was to establish an in-patient hospice in Belgrade. In 2005, BELhospice became part of the Hospices of Hope network, a British charity dedicated to supporting the development of hospice care in South East Europe.

In 2006, a breakthrough came when a London Trust made a donation to Hospices of Hope in memory of one of the early UK hospice pioneers. This gift enabled the purchase of a small training centre in Belgrade for BELhospice together with a base for the home-care team and out-patient clinic. The early team comprised of a doctor and two nurses and later expanded to comprise of a Medical Director, specialist doctor, two specialist nurses, a fund-raiser and an administrator.

Another significant change happened in 2011 when Zoran Purkovic was appointed as Executive Director. The team was further expanded to include an additional nurse, social worker, psychologist, spiritual coordinator and a group of more than 50 trained and active volunteers, thus introducing the multi-disciplinary hospice approach.

Vision During the coming years we want BELhospice to continue to be at the forefront of the hospice movement in Serbia and wider region. Our organization will have a dramatic impact on the development of palliative care in the country by introducing a model of good practice and creating an opportunity for direct hands-on training in palliative care, thus helping thousands of terminally ill patients.

Our vision is to continue to increase the capacity of home care in the next two years so that we can take care of 400 patients per year in Belgrade. At the same time our vision is to establish the first specialist inpatient unit in Belgrade by the end of 2017. The new hospice will serve as a Centre of Excellence for palliative care practitioners from Serbia and some of the surrounding countries.

The need Serbia has a population of 7.5 million. Cancer is the second cause of death in the country with more than 30,000 new cancer diagnoses per year and over 20,000 cancer related deaths per year. One third of cancer patients are dying in hospitals, often alone. The rest of the patients are dying at home, putting a huge strain on the families that are most often financially deprived and not prepared to deal with huge challenges that the disease brings to them. With a population of 2 million in Belgrade, there is a need for around 200 in-patient hospice beds* in the city. (* according to World Health Organization guidelines).

It is unfortunate that Belgrade and the rest of Serbia do not currently have one single specialist hospice for terminally ill patients. There are several palliative care units within State hospitals around Serbia but they are unable to provide multi-disciplinary holistic care. With this project we hope to change that and become a future Centre of Excellence for the whole country.

The Solution A teaching unit with 12 beds would provide a “Centre of Excellence” in the capital. The main focus would continue to be on home-care and support in the hospitals. In-patient units, which require 24 hour staffing, are more expensive to run than mobile teams, but are needed to demonstrate good practice and deal with the more complicated cases. There is also a strong economic case for building a hospice, as currently many terminally ill patients are admitted to the Clinical Center and other acute hospitals, which are more expensive to run and beds needed by curable patients are often blocked.

During the last couple of years we looked at a large number of properties. This included buildings owned by city council of Belgrade, privately owned properties as well as land on the city outskirts. The vast majority of them did not fit our needs as they were either too expensive or had issues with the ownership and/or building permits.

The Preferred Option Following an extensive search we have found a site of approximately 2,500 sqm that would be ideal for the inpatient hospice. The site includes a building of approximately 800sqm that could replace the current offices and education centre as well as additional services such as a day care centre and out-patient clinic. A purpose-built wing with 12 beds will be added behind the building and the site provides space for a patient garden and parking. The house has a central heating system, its own generator as well as connections for solar panels. The whole project was proposed and led by leading worldwide agents CBRE. The agents do the work pro bono for our charity.

* Exterior of the House

Bedroom (2nd floor office) Living area (Day Centre)

Costs

Funding Through Hospices of Hope, BELhospice has obtained an interest-free loan to purchase the land and property. Fundraising to repay the loan and secure the balance of funds needed for the project would start immediately. Our plan is to achieve this goal over the next 30 month period i.e. September 2015 to December 2017 and would be made up as follows:

Sustainability BELhospice has been fortunate to be able to count on support and financial help from its long term partners such as international and local companies in Serbia as well as number of individual supporters. We have also received valuable support from our long term supporters in the UK and North America. However, in order to achieve our current goals, we need to widen our support base.

The key asset that has been built over the time is BELhospice’ own fundraising and management capability. The income was nearly tripled during the period 2011-2014. Despite such a growth and doubling of the number of employees employed coupled by a considerable extension of services, the costs have been kept under full control.

Finally last but not least there will be number of grants available during the next several years in particular from IPA funds as Serbia is getting closer to EU. We had a number of successful applications for funding starting from Dutch CNS fund to more recent Trag/USAID project. We have also successfully partnered on the 3 year EU sponsored project together with Ministry of Health. A recent grant that BELhospice received from Norwegian embassy in July 2015, where only 18 NGOs were selected from 504 applicants, clearly demonstrates the potential in this area.

The main advantage of this project is the fact that it can be done in several stages thus giving us so much needed flexibility in case of the funding cuts and unforeseen financial difficulties. The first stage of the move can include our current home services team and only 3, 4 patient beds on the inpatient floor. As we increase the income further patient beds can be added up to 8 or even 10 in the existing building. During the Phase 2 in 2017 we can, depending on the finances, add 12 more beds unit that would be connected to the existing building with the glass corridor. Further on in the following decade if we secure additional financing additional 12 and up to 24 beds could be added as additional floors making this one of the largest hospices in this part of Europe.

Naming Rights Landmark donor

Right for naming the whole hospice 100,000 EUR Corporate/Individual Patron

Right for naming the ward or day centre 50,000 EUR Corporate/Individual Member

Right to name a reception area 20,000 EUR Corporate/Individual Founder Member

Right to name a patient room 10,000 EUR Naming rights for other objects of significance

in the hospice and the garden from 500 to 5,000 EUR Financial Procedures and Controls on Hospice Appeal Funds All money given for the Serbia Hospice Appeal will be kept in a UniCredit bank account, separately from the other BELhospice funds. Most of the money will be kept in EUR as well as long term deposit accounts in RSD where it gains interest. The interest is kept for the New Hospice Appeal.

The money for the Serbia Hospice Appeal will be spent in accordance with the budget as approved by the Finance and Governance Committee. The finance committee will release the funds after they are spent on sight of proof of payment in line with the budget. Where the charity wants to make expenditure in variance to the budget, the finance committee will meet to discuss the variation, and to approve a new version of the budget.

Donations can be made the following way: RSD account IBAN 170-230030002-18 EUR account IBAN 170-230030005-09 UniCredit Bank Serbia JSC, Rajiceva 27-29, Belgrade, Serbia SWIFT - BACXRSBG

BELhospice, Dalmatinska 72-74, Belgrade, Serbia; www.belhospice.org

The new website www.fandrejzing.org, is a unique platform for fundraising in Serbia giving total transparency and overview of funds raised. For donations go to Donate, Donate for Hospice.

Since 2013 BELhospice is audited by KPMG as we aim toward total transparency of our work.