Giant leap forward for palliative care in Kerry
AFTER eight years – and a massive county-wide fundraising effort that brought in over €6 million – the Kerry Hospice Foundation will celebrate a landmark day in its history this Friday when the new Palliative Care in-patient unit opens at University Hospital Kerry.
The sod was turned on the facility in December 2015 and early next month the unit will welcome its first patients.
On Friday Ted Moynihan – a co-founder of the Kerry Hospice Foundation (KHF) who has helped lead its fundraising efforts since 1990 – will officially open the new 15 bed unit.
The state of the art unit cost €6.2 million to build and while the HSE donated the site – at the rear of University Hospital Kerry – the full cost of the facility had to be raised by the inspirational volunteers of the KHF.
They achieved this seemingly impossible task in a phenomenally short time thanks to the incredible generosity of the people of Kerry who organised hundreds of fundraising events – both large and small – across the length and breadth of the county.
Ted Moynihan and his team began the job of raising the funds for an in-patient unit back in 2009, just two years after the opening of the original Palliative Care day unit in 2007. That unit – which has since been described as a model for the rest of Ireland to follow – was also funded by the KHF.
The fundraising effort continues to this day as aside from funding their day to day activities – such as providing extra nursing care at patient’s homes and refurbishing hospice rooms in community hospitals – the KHF have also agreed to cover the cost of staffing the new inpatient unit for the first five years.
Hundreds of people, including many whose loved ones have been cared for at the facility, are expected to be on hand to watch as Ted Moynihnan – who was named 2017 Kerry Person of the Year in recognition of his work with the KHF – cuts the ribbon to open the in-patient unit.
“This will be a huge event for the foundation. This is a massive achievement and we in the Kerry Hospice movement are very proud of this,” said a KHF spokesperson.
The official opening takes place at the Palliative Care Unit, located at the rear of UHK Tralee, at 2.30pm on Friday, September 22.