Tag Archives: heart

AN Ennis family has been lauded by a local kidney recipient for donating organs from their 19-year-old son, who died unexpectedly 10 years ago. In an interview with The Clare Champion to promote Organ Donor Awareness Week, which continues until April 4, Mary Murphy, Considine Road, explained that her youngest son, Garry died as a result of heart failure caused by a seizure in 2005. Mary says that she didn’t really think about organ donation at the time because she didn’t think anything was going to happen to Garry. “The family was called into a room in University Hospital, Limerick and were asked would we donate his organs and without even thinking, I said ‘yes’. Even though Garry was on life support, it was as if I was on the outside looking in. I brought in his clothes for going home. It hadn’t hit home. “He got a seizure on a Saturday morning and the life-support machine was turned off the …

MEMBERS and volunteers from the Clare Branch of the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) are promotion donor cards and fundraising at locations throughout the county this week. They focused on Ennis, Newmarket-on-Fergus and Tulla over the weekend  and will head to Killaloe on this Thursday and Kilrush and Shannon on Saturday. The focus of the campaign is to promote awareness of the need for organ donation during National Organ Donor Awareness Week. The week was officially launched at an information meeting in the Temple Gate Hotel, Ennis last week. The speakers included Professor Austin Stack, consultant nephrologist at University Hospital, Limerick (UHL); Libby Sweeney, pharmacist at UHL and Mike Kelly, coordinator of counselling services at Donor House. Currently, there are 36 Clare patients receiving life-saving haemodialysis treatment at the dialysis unit in UHL, the Fresenius unit at Riverside Park and Unit 7, Merlin Park. There are also seven Clare patients on the home dialysis programme and on the more recent treatment …

A LOCAL  group, who have been bringing potentially life saving defibrillators to the streets of Ennis, have just installed their fourth device. The Ennis Defibrillator Committee is behind the installation of a new defibrillator at Roslevan this week. And there are plans to provide four more in the future with a fundraising quiz planned for next Thursday in the West County Hotel. According to the fundraising committee chairman Paul O’Shea, “Each defibrillator costs €2,300 and the committee have raised enough money to purchase four units. These units are positioned at key locations throughout Ennis. We can’t believe that in these hard times, that we have now purchased four units. The generosity of the Clare public is astounding. In addition, Ennis is in the process of achieving the status of ‘Heart Safe Town’ the much coveted award from the Irish Heart Foundation.” The fund raising committee includes the Clare Red Cross, Ennis Chamber, Avondale Soccer club and other businesses/community groups. The …