Bikur Cholim of Crown Heights: Providing Support for Each Other through Medical Crisis

A medical crisis can throw an entire family into a tailspin, with devastating ramifications for both the patient and the entire family. That’s where Bikur Cholim of Crown Heights steps in.

They sat across from the doctor, his somber face signaling unwelcome news. He began speaking, and the couple lost their breath as the reality of their situation sank in. Invasive exams, hospital stays, complicated treatments, missed simchas, missed work, worried children, exorbitant medical bills…  

How will we get through this?

Time stops when a serious diagnosis is confirmed. Priorities rearrange themselves in a few rapid heartbeats as fears ignite, routines crumble, and families struggle to maintain even the basics. The fallout of serious illness or an accident can have devastating ramifications for the patient and the entire family.  The crisis throws the entire home into a tailspin. The loss of routine, the tremendous added expenses, and the focus on the patient’s recovery take a physical, mental, financial, and emotional toll on entire families. 

Warm meals, once a given, suddenly become a luxury. A chance for a parent and child to do homework together becomes more of a dream than a reality. When the patient was previously the family breadwinner, or if one of the parents needs to take time off of work to care for an ill child, regular household expenses become crushing; when an older patient, who was previously independent, needs an escort to appointments; when someone who usually has it together is overwhelmed by the complexity of medical care and needs advice and support through the many steps and decisions–this is where Bikur Cholim of Crown Heights steps in.

Our community partners make our work possible, and we’re asking everyone to join us today as we raise $400,000 to continue to provide comprehensive medical crisis support for our community. 

With an eye on the full picture, Bikur Cholim takes the patient into its all encompassing embrace and provides comprehensive crisis support. From home-cooked meals to hospital visits, from offering financial support to sending babysitters and cleaning help, Bikur Cholim becomes like family– offering an array of resources and a volunteer support network that works tirelessly for the community.  The individualized care is personalized down to helping arrange a family simcha that would otherwise have been overlooked or sending gifts to the children affected by a family member’s illness.  With sensitivity to each family’s individual challenge, Bikur Cholim has become a first resort for hundreds of families (1,341 individuals last year alone, to be exact). 

This Charidy campaign will enable Bikur Cholim to continue to assist with medical bills and provider fees, household support, critical mental health care, childcare, meals, transportation, post-natal and post-surgical convalescence care, and a diverse array of assistance. Bikur Cholim has always relied on the Crown Heights community’s support to ensure that nobody is left to suffer alone.  

Since the COVID outbreak in 2020, the mental health crises in the community has come to the forefront as the medical challenge of our times.  While Bikur Cholim is known to support patients through their physical healing, recently, more and more patients have been turning to Bikur Cholim for help in their psychological healing. Mental illness, while not tangible, is no less real and no less devastating.

Bikur Cholim fields calls from across our entire Crown Heights community – like the young man whose wife has been hospitalized for three and a half months with postpartum psychosis, while he is left parenting a newborn and toddler alone, or the teens and young adults in the community who suffer from severe depression and associated substance abuse.  And since mental health treatment is often not covered by insurance, Bikur Cholim is is often called upon to offer supplemental funds to reduce the cost of treatment.

With an all-volunteer board and an outstanding team of volunteers from the Crown Heights community, Bikur Cholim keeps overhead costs incredibly low, ensuring that every donation goes directly to helping an individual or family in the community. In the last year, Bikur Cholim distributed close to a million dollars in financial assistance. 

In 2021, Bikur Cholim established “Hadassah’s Place” in memory of Hadassah Lebovic a”h. The first hospitality suite of its kind in the heart of Crown Heights, Hadassah’s Place services out-of-town anash patients and their families traveling to NYC for medical care.  This suite is just  one of the incredible resources that Bikur Cholim is able to offer to make the challenges of illness a little bit easier. 

Today’s Charidy campaign will enable Bikur Cholim to continue to assist with medical bills and provider fees, household support, critical mental health care, childcare, meals, transportation, post-natal and post-surgical convalescence care, and a diverse array of assistance.  Bikur Cholim has always relied on the Crown Heights community’s support to ensure that nobody is left to suffer by themselves.  The drop-in visit and friendly chat, shabbos flowers, freshly baked challah, private performance by a favorite singer and the many caring Bikur Cholim gestures make all the difference in making sure that no one feels isolated during a difficult time.

“The main aspect of the mitzvah of bikur cholim is to determine the needs of the patient to see what has to be done for them,” states the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. For the Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Bikur Cholim of Crown Heights, this is more than just a mantra: it is a mission. As long as someone in the community is experiencing illness, chas v’shalom, Bikur Cholim and the Crown Heights community will continue to be there for each other in a compassionate and engaged way until all illness is eradicated with the coming of Moshiach speedily in our days.  

To donate, visit Charidy.com/BCCH24 or BikurCholimCH.org.