Stichting Ambulance Wens Nederland fulfils the last wishes of dying people

A dying woman asked to see a Rembrandt before the end. This happened in Amsterdam in 2015, and it was not an isolated case: several other gravely ill patients in the city's hospitals asked to be shown "The Night Watch" and the Rembrandt exhibition.

The chance to grant the last wishes of people in a grave condition exists thanks to the work of a voluntary charitable organisation, Stichting Ambulance Wens Nederland, whose ranks include several hundred doctors.

In effect, the chief instrument of this internationally recognised Dutch organisation is its volunteer ambulances, staffed with medical personnel, which allow dying people to regain their mobility and visit places they would like to see, perhaps for the last time in their lives. The organisation has existed since 2007 and fulfils the most varied wishes of its charges: some ask to visit a former workplace, a favourite park, a corner of nature, or a zoo with a beloved giraffe; some simply dream of a bottle of beer, of getting home, or of finding themselves within gallery walls