Paramedic taking terminally ill people for one final journey during lockdown

He's helped hundreds of seriously ill patients during the coronavirus pandemic.

A retired ambulance driver has been fulfilling the last wishes of terminally ill people amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Former paramedic Kees Veldboer, 60, from the Netherlands, has taken hundreds of seriously ill patients on one final journey despite the difficulties he has faced during lockdown.

Mr Veldboer’s Stichting Ambulance Wens (Ambulance Wish Foundation) has driven patients to places they’d like to say goodbye to, with unprecedented demand for tulip fields in bloom.

A patient also recently asked to say goodbye to his horse, while another one requested to see his beloved boat for one last time.

Mr Veldboer said: ‘We fulfil wishes even now with the Coronavirus. We are not in a complete lockdown so we are able to make those wishes come true.

‘We can go to open spaces, to flower gardens, to an empty zoo, a park, a lot of people want to see the sea, it’s not forbidden.

‘As long as we go to open places and there are not many people around, just one or two with the patient, we are fine.’

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Mr Veldboer is planning to transfer a terminally ill Dutchman from Spain back to the Netherlands later this week to be with his family. 

He added: ‘Coronavirus is not going to stop us, no one will.’ 

Mr Veldboer and his wife Ineke, 61, have fulfilled the dying wishes of more than 14,000 terminally ill people since starting their foundation.

They recently took a dying couple to see snow for one last time.

As of Sunday, the number of confirmed coronavirus infections in the Netherlands had risen to 37,845, with 4,475 deaths.

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