Summerville staff raise hospice funds
LAST year Summerville nursing home in Strandhill lost a very special member of staff to cancer.
47- year- old Joe Gilligan passed away last August after a two year battle with pancreatic and Liver cancer. The popular local was Director of Nursing at the coastal medical facility. Staff there recall Joe fondly and recently raised money in his memory which they have just donated to the North West Hospice.
His sister Mary Flynn from Strandhill recalls: “A few years ago, my wonderful brother Joe came back to Sligo after fifteen years and landed his dream job as Director of Nursing in Summerville Nursing Home.
“He was very professional at his job so loyal, caring, kind and respected and loved by so many who knew him. He had a great sense of humour and because of this he along with another staff member decided to introduce the Kris Kringle into Summerville as a bit of fun among the staff.”
Mary continues: “Unfortunately, just over a year into his new role Joe was diag- nosed with Pancreatic and Liver cancer, it was devastating, we couldn’t believe it. After two and half years of this illness Joe passed away on August 27th 2016 aged forty seven under the care of North West Hospice, Oncology and Cancer Care.”
Mary says: “The team of Summerville decided to carry on Joe’s Kris Kringle this year and donate all to North West Hospice. They raised € 524 in Joe’s memory. He would have been so proud of them. This was such a beautiful gesture from an amazing group of people. They were not only his work colleagues but many of them became his close friends. They like me and my family miss Joe so much. We wish to keep his memory alive with gestures like this and other events coming up in his memory.”
Mary says the family are so grateful to the staff at Summerville for thinking of Joe and for the generous donation to an extremely worthy cause.