The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Quiet man Joe Browne steals the show with inspiring talk on fighting Cystic Fibrosis
IF you happened to be walking past the Dromhall Hotel on the Muckross Road in Killarney last Wednesday night, you might have felt the earth shake just a little under your feet, such was the applause that erupted from the hotel’s banqueting hall at the end of guest speaker and Build4Life founder, Joe Browne’s speech at the Kerry Community Awards.
Build4Life was formed in 2007 and was recently wound down by Joe after the charity had impressively completed its mission statement – raising over €4million for Cystic Fibrosis care in Cork University Hospital (CUH).
For a man who has so often over the past 10 years found himself in the spotlight for his incredible contributions to charity and Irish society, it was a shock to this writer to find out that the founder of the charity is not all that fond of public speaking. Not that he let this deter him from delivering an inspiring 20-minute speech to over 250 people on the night!
Reading from a prepared speech in front of him and dressed casually in jeans, a shirt and tie and a suit jacket, Joe’s wavering voice betrayed his nerves as he spoke candidly of the the immense difficulties he faced in the wake of his son Padraig’s diagnosis with Cystic Fibrosis - a time which he admits were some of his ‘darkest days’.
“Fourteen years ago, my son was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis in the Bon Secours Hospital in Tralee; he had been a sickly child from birth and had been admitted to hospital with chronic pneumonia eight times and the eight time, he nearly died; thankfully though, George Philipp, who was working that weekend, saved my sons life.
“The following day, he was tested for Cystic Fibrosis and a day later, it was confirmed that he did indeed have CF,” Joe recalled.
“My wife was three months pregnant at the time and there was a strong possibility that he would have CF as well; life expectancy for people with Cystic Fibrosis back then was just 17 years old – those were our darkest days.”
“It might not seem like it now, but the treatment of Cystic Fibrosis in Ireland in 2002 was truly in the dark ages. There was no cure, there was no hope for a cure, you were essentially told to enjoy your child while you had them and that was it.”
Determined to find out as much as possible about the illness which had cast a shadow over all of their lives, Joe told how he dived full-on into research mode for the next 12 months and said that after too many late nights on the internet, where tales of Cystic Fibrosis heartache were all too prevalent for his liking, he decided to throw his hand into fundraising efforts for the cause.
“There was a huge need for specialised CF staff in our hospitals – nurses, physiotherapists, doctors – I knew when it came to fundraising for CF, we would have to think outside the box to attract attention and garner support. We quite simply did not have the numbers to create the funds in a more conventional way – we had to do something novel, something the media would latch onto and so I approached some of my friends with the view of doing a walk to Dublin, with a twist – we would push a wheely bin with us.
“It wasn’t the greatest idea in the world but the event went ahead and we managed to raise €50,000 - it was the largest amount of money raised for Cystic Fibrosis in Kerry to date and, at the time, some of the funds that we used were to purchase portable TV’s and PlayStations for the kids in Tralee General Hospital and the Bon Secours.”
This success would be the first of many for Joe and his team of volunteers, culminating in a silicone wristband campaign which successfully raised in excess of €250,000 for Cystic Fibrosis - one of the largest figures ever raised for the illness to date.
“These funds paid for physiotherapists, nurses and even though we were still only a very small group of people, we now realised that thinking big with novelty ideas – we could make large amounts of money with limited resources.
“Outside of a cure which we knew we could not get, we decided that the next best thing that we could do was to develop isolated Inpatient and Outpatient Cystic Fibrosis facilities in our hospitals – by having these facilities, we could eliminate this risk of infection.”
It was through a meeting with a young Cystic Fibrosis sufferer from Dingle called Mary Hand in 2007, that Joe said that he fully became aware of the need for the life-saving CF facilities currently in place in CUH and, although Mary passed away shortly after meeting Joe, her spirit well and truly lived on in the work carried out by the now official, ‘Build4Life’ charity.
Since these humble beginnings, Build4Life has funded the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Outpatient Clinic, including all the medical equipment in Cork University Hospital (CUH) at a cost of €350,000, secured two new staff members for the children’s Cystic Fibrosis department and is now providing the funding for over 70 per cent of the isolated inpatient and outpatient Cystic Fibrosis facilities in Ireland.
Finishing his speech, Joe took the time to congratulate all of the gathered community groups on the night on being named as finalists, thanking everyone who had ever contributed to the Build4Life charity, before quickly making his exit from the stage and from the limelight.
Cue the applause for this amazing and modest man.