Enabling parents to have some much needed time away from the pressures of caring for their little ones 24 hours a day can mean the difference between them coping or not coping with the physical and psychological demands that come into play when you have a child with high dependency needs.

Funding in-home nursing care for children is one of the ways that we can support parents in their hour of need, give them some breathing space, get them out of the house and enable them to have some time as a couple – all things vital to maintaining the stability of the family unit.

We funded over $10,000 of respite care in 2011 and have just funded $154.40 for 4 hours of in-home nursing for Jocelyn today.

We use grant funding (when we have it) General Donations and occasionally funds in our Emergency Fund (for eligible children) to pay for these nursing services.  If you’d like to help support families in this most important way, you can make a  donation to our Emergency Fund here…

Australian children’s charity I Give A Buck Foundation of Australia Ltd assists children from disadvantaged families who also suffer from a life-threatening or life-altering illness or condition – with particular focus on terminally ill children.

After being able to fund some in-home nursing care for Dylan two weeks ago, to allow him to spend his final days at home with his family, this week we’ve also been able to assist with Dylan’s funeral costs.  Thanks to your generosity, we were able to cover the $3,372 cost…

Australian children’s charity I Give A Buck Foundation of Australia Ltd assists children from disadvantaged families who also suffer from a life-threatening or life-altering illness or condition – with particular focus on terminally ill children. 

The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne offers an in-home nursing service to assist families of children with complex and chronic medical care needs to be cared for at home with their family.

This is a paid service and since January 2011 we’ve funded $9,990 worth of nursing care for IGAB kids – including $700 last week for 2 year old ‘Carl’ while he battles a brain tumour. 

Carl isn’t this little boy’s real name but the family has asked us to use an alias for privacy reasons – something we are always happy to do for our families.

We are able to provide this much needed support, for some very special families, through the generosity of some of our grant providers, including:  Australian Unity, Grosvenor Foundation and Australian Ethical Super & Investment – as well as your General Donations – so keep them coming!

Australian children’s charity I Give A Buck Foundation of Australia Ltd assists children from disadvantaged families who also suffer from a life-threatening or life-altering illness or condition – with particular focus on terminally ill children.

In February 2011 we were honoured to be able to assist the beautiful Bethany.  This gorgeous 15 year old girl was undergoing treatment for an aggressive and inoperable brain tumour.

Bethany had lost the use of her left side, including her arm, leg, and even the sight in her left eye.  She had been through 33 treatments of radiation and was halfway through her chemotherapy treatment.

Bethany suffered a lot of pain, particularly at night, and we launched an appeal to raise $5,000 to pay for some in-home nursing services, to be provided by the Melbourne Royal Children’ s Hospital At Home Service.

We received $790 in public donations and topped up the appeal with $4,210 from the grant funding that we received from  The Grosvenor Foundation.

On March 5th 2011 Bethany lost her brave battle, at home, surrounded by her wonderful family. We feel very grateful to have been able to bring Bethany and her family some much needed assistance at such a difficult time and we say a heartfelt “thank you” to everyone who donated to Bethany’s Appeal.

Dylan really needs some in-home nursing care to hep with his many problems – let’s make sure he gets it.  

Dylan was born in February 2005 after a normal pregnancy and start to labour.  As a result of his birth he was diagnosed with severe grade III HIE (hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy) and following that with Cerebral Palsy and Epilepsy.

When he was 9 months old he had failure to thrive and started to feed through a Nasogastric Tube.  He had a few hospital admissions with pneumonia in the years that followed but was fairly robust and healthy.

In April 2009 he had very bad pneumonia and was intubated and airlifted to Monash Medical Centre ICU.  At some point during this admission it was found that he had nasty bacteria in his chest which is notoriously difficult to get rid of.

In May 2009 he had a PEG (feeding tube) inserted in his tummy – this was meant to make giving him food easier but he got very sick and had an abscess removed from his abdominal cavity and came very close to dying.

As a result of the bacteria and subsequent surgery he has been chronically ill with episodes of acute pain and infection requiring many admissions to hospital and at least 10 visits to ICU.

For the past 20 months he has also missed out on essential therapies like physio, occupational and speech therapy as he has been too unwell to travel regularly to early intervention or school.

In May 2010 Dylan spent another 13 days in ICU following a viral infection that left him with permanent lung damage and he now has oxygen 24 hours a day.

Dylan is an absolutely wonderful little boy and is full of giggles and smiles and loves to “chat” to people and especially likes to flirt with nurses in hospital!  He has some really special people in his life who all help to make him more comfortable and able to spend as much time at home with his big brother & sister as possible.

Dylan lives with his Mum and brother and sister who are 11 and 10 years old.

To help Dyla, click here.