Registered nurse and paramedic Matan Nitzky spent over 10 years working across a range of healthcare settings in Israel, including hospitals, health maintenance organizations and home-care services, but he often felt his hands were tied.
He explained to JNS that, despite Israel’s strong healthcare system, chronic understaffing and overwhelming patient loads left him without even a moment to say hello to those he treated, an experience he referred to as “the assembly line of socialized medicine.”
Therefore, at the beginning of 2023, Nitzky went out on his own and founded Dream Care—a private healthcare service in the greater Jerusalem area, offering home visits and treatment from experienced nurses and other health professionals, which he said didn’t exist before.
Nitzky described a case while working as a nurse for an HMO when an elderly home-bound immobile patient was suffering because her catheter needed to be flushed. The HMO didn’t provide home visits and her son was forced to try to get her to a clinic.
They made it to the parking lot, yet the woman was too weak to leave the car. Braving pouring rain and darkness, Nitzky tended to her long after his shift, allowing her to get back home safely.
“It is stories like that and many others, which motivated me to start the Dream Care service,” he said.
Dream Care currently has about 20 experienced freelance nurses at its disposal under the auspices of a doctor, who serves as the company’s medical director. The nurses are dispatched to a patient’s home when a call comes in and arrive for treatment in around an hour.
Nitzky said this might include providing wound care, injections, IV treatments, catheter care, bloodwork, even certain types of chemotherapy and more. Medications can be ordered by Dream Care’s medical doctor or by a patient’s personal doctor and administered by the Dream Care staff.
He explained that around 30 percent of his clients are Israelis and another 30 percent are tourists in Israel seeking medical help, while the other 40 percent use Dream Care for chronic treatments or post-operative care, requiring regularly scheduled home visits.
Dream Care also provides advocacy services accompanying Israelis and visiting tourists to the hospital and doctors’ visits and helping them cut through the red tape and language barriers to get the best treatment possible.
“Not only do we take clients to the hospital or doctor and advocate for them, often bridging Hebrew language gaps, but we also speak ‘medical.’ We can guide them through whatever they’re facing and help build a clear plan,” he said.
Dream Care also specializes in providing comprehensive case management for patients with multiple and complex medical issues.
A member of the ultra-Orthodox community, Nitzky studies Torah daily and treats his work as an essential calling, bringing vital medical care to his patients.
Moshe Meyer, who has been a freelance nurse with Dream Care for over two years and is currently in medical school studying to be a doctor, told JNS the service provided by Dream Care was important for Israelis but also for tourists, particularly from the U.S. or Europe, who aren’t familiar with the Israeli medical system.
J.L. (name withheld on request), a father from Gush Etzion, has a son who developed PANDAS syndrome, a pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder triggered by strep-throat infections.
In an interview with JNS, he said doctors told him that his son needed a specialized IV treatment known as IVIG (Intravenous Immunoglobulin treatment), which could be provided only at the hospital. He contacted Dream Care and it arranged for medical professionals to provide the treatments at home.
“We are here to bridge the gaps, providing the highest level of care and advocacy for our patients,” Nitzky said. “This is revolutionary.”
