Stiftung Chance für das kritisch kranke Kind

Stiftung Chance
für das kritisch kranke Kind
at Kinderspital Zürich

Our focus

Who does Stiftung Chance support?

Stiftung Chance complements the Children's Hospital Zurich with various additional services. We focus on the intensive care units and neonatology. There we support critically ill children, their families and the medical and nursing teams. 

Why is this necessary?

The University Children's Hospital Zurich, itself a foundation, is one of the leading institutions for paediatric and adolescent medicine in Switzerland. Stiftung Chance enables additional services at the Children's Hospital Zurich that are not covered by the public purse. Stiftung Chance was founded in 1999 by parents of critically ill children and is financed solely by donations. 

We support critically ill children

With your help, Stiftung Chance supports the Children's Hospital Zurich. On behalf of the critically ill children and their families, we thank you for your generosity.

We are currently seeking donations for: a new Baby Ambulance

After almost 1,000 missions, the Baby Ambulance, which has become a familiar sight in Zurich, needs to be replaced. It was financed in 2014 by the Stiftung Chance für das kritisch kranke Kind. At the moment the rescue team at the Zurich Children's Hospital, Zurich's Schutz und Rettung and the Stiftung Chance are evaluating the requirements, the interior design and, in particular, the financing of the new Baby Ambulance.

Baby Ambulanz vorgefahren

Thank you very much for your donation!

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Our services at Kinderspital Zürich

Baby Ambulance

Baby Ambulance

In 2014, Stiftung Chance financed the state-of-the-art Baby Ambulance, which has since become part of the cityscape in Zurich. It is a mobile intensive care unit that is used daily to transfer critically ill premature and newborn babies from maternity hospitals to the Children's Hospital Zurich. Donations to the Chance Foundation ensure the operation of the baby outpatient clinic.

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Care Team

Care Team

The Care Team of the Children's Hospital has the difficult task of supporting parents and relatives of critically ill and dying children. The Care Team helps the parents to accompany their child in the last phase of its life and to say goodbye. Its staff supports grieving relatives with their questions about funeral arrangements and in processing what they have experienced.

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Pflegeberatung Kinderspital Zürich

Care Counselling Service

Children who are ventilated via a cannula in the windpipe or by means of a face mask should also be allowed to go home. For a smooth transition, parents need to be well prepared. The care counselling service takes on this demanding task.

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Art therapy

Art therapy

A ray of hope in the stressful daily hospital routine: painting, handicrafts, singing or role-playing help critically ill children to switch off, but also to express their feelings and fears. Stiftung Chance pays the salaries of the therapists and all painting and craft materials.

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Nutritional counselling

Nutritional counselling

Critically ill children are usually fed artificially. They often suffer from over- or malnutrition, digestive system disorders, muscle loss and failure to thrive. Nutritional counselling specialized in intensive care medicine in an interdisciplinary setting can improve the nutritional situation of these children. This is intended to prevent nutritional deficiencies, promote the healing process, and shorten the length of stay in the intensive care unit.

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In moments of crisis

In moments of crisis

Families of critically ill children who find themselves in a stressful situation receive competent and empathetic support from specialists in psychology and social work at the Children's Hospital Zurich. Stiftung Chance compensates the experts for their task.

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Pflegeberatung Stiftung Chance Kinderspital Zürich

Care Counsellers

With exceptionally large numbers of critically ill infants with viral respiratory infections (often RSV) the medical and nursing teams are at their limits. This situation is exacerbated by the already existing shortage of staff. Our care counsellors connect with the families in their stressful situation, integrate them into the processes where possible and support the medical teams in their work.

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Music therapy

Music therapy

The positive effect of music as a form of therapy unfolds especially in neonatology. Premature and newborn babies learn to soothe themselves. For older, critically ill children, music therapy provides a way of expressing themselves and producing sounds. The music therapists are paid by Stiftung Chance.

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Realised projects

Realised projects

Founded in 1999, Stiftung Chance has been able to realize various projects – thanks to the generous support of our donors.

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Reports

The Stiftung Chance für das kritisch kranke Kind has been active at the Zurich Children's Hospital since 1999. We have experienced and achieved a lot in this time. Read more (only in German).
Reports

Our board

The Board of Trustees of the Stiftung Chance für das kritisch kranke Kind is made up of medical and nursing specialists at the Children's Hospital Zurich and members who are anchored in professional and family life.

Sandra Bloch

After studying medicine, clinical practice and qualifying as a specialist in pharmaceutical medicine, Sandra Bloch worked for many years in various management positions in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry in Switzerland and abroad. She has a broad knowledge of medical affairs, expertise in various therapeutic areas, is familiar with the Swiss healthcare system and has extensive management experience. Sandra Bloch is married and the mother of two grown-up children.

Evi Ehrensperger-Schaub

Evi Ehrensperger-Schaub worked as secretary to the management at Ecosens AG, Environmental Management Consultant. She got to know Stiftung Chance as a mother of a critically ill child. Since then, she has been committed to giving back some of the support she and her daughter have received. Since April 2022, Evi Ehrensperger-Schaub is managing director of Stiftung Chance.
Evi Ehrensperger-Schaub

Lukas Jerie

Lukas Jerie has been working at the Children's Hospital Zurich since 2006. During his career, he has gained experience in various paediatric hospitals and acute care clinics, including in Australia. Today, Lukas Jerie is a senior physician in the Department of Intensive Care Medicine and Neonatology at the Children's Hospital Zurich, and he is also involved as an instructor in simulation training. He grew up bilingual – Swiss German and Czech – and took over as president of the Chance for Critically Ill Children Foundation in January 2025. Lukas Jerie is a family father.

Corinne Mertzlufft

Corinne Mertzlufft is a businesswoman and held to this day various professional and leading positions, i.e. in Business Development Management. She is fluent in five languages and describes herself as a team player who likes to "get things moving".
Claudia Furrer-Kübler

Rebecca Pfaffen

Rebecca Pfaffen works at the Children's Hospital Zurich as Deputy Head of Nursing on Intensive Care Ward A and is Co-Head of the hospitals Ethics Committee. As a certified expert NDS HF in intensive care, Rebecca Pfaffen experiences first-hand how valuable the complementary services offered by Stiftung Chance are, for example the Care Team. She is the mother of a son.
Rebecca Pfaffen

Eva Stoffel

Until her retirement, Eva Stoffel worked for 30 years in a senior position at the Zurich Children's Hospital. During this time, she practised as a paediatric physiotherapist in all the wards. She is therefore well acquainted with everyday life in intensive care units and neonatology. Eva Stoffel has witnessed many times the invaluable support of Stiftung Chance to children and parents in distressing situations.