FORTY- FOUR PEOPLE ARE UNDERGOING DIALYSIS IN SLIGO
AMONG the events taking place in Sligo during Organ Donor Awareness Week will be a Tractor & Car Run on Sunday, 2nd April organised by sixteen year old, Luke Kerrigan, a transition year student at Grange Secondary School.
Vintage and modern tractors and cars will be leaving Oxford Sports Centre at 11am and there will be a participation fee of € 10 per vehicle.
The Irish Kidney Association’s Sligo branch’s annual benefit night with DJ Kevin Flannery will take place at The Blue Lagoon on Saturday 8th April at 9pm and promises to be a great night of music, spot prizes and finger food. Tickets are € 10 and will be available at the door.
There are currently 44 patients undergoing haemodialysis treatment at Sligo General Hospital.
Irish Kidney Association volunteers will be distributing organ donor cards and selling forget- me- not flower emblems ( the symbol of transplantation) and other merchandise in towns and villages around County Sligo.
The key focus of the Organ Donor Awareness Week campaign which will take place from 1st - 8th April is to continue to re- mind the Irish public to have the important family discus- sion about their wishes concern- ing deceased organ donation and support the Irish Kidney Association by buying a ‘ forget- me- not’ flower and other mer- chandise, while its volunteers distribute the organ donor cards.
For the sec- ond year, living Kidney donor and RTÉ broadcaster Vivienne Traynor continues in her voluntary role of ambassador for Organ Donor Awareness Week.
Vivienne’s nephew Martin Traynor ( age 36) from Skerries, Dublin underwent two kidney transplants, his first for which she was the living kidney donor, and five years later, in November 2014, his second transplant was from a deceased donor. Martin and his partner Mary are expecting the birth of their third child since receiving his kidney transplants.
Just last September another relation of theirs, Michaela Delany, aged 17 from Clondalkin, underwent a second transplant, this time from her kidney donor mother Liz. She had her first kidney transplant when she was just two years old thanks to a deceased organ donor.
In 2016, 280 organs transplants were carried out in Ireland. 230 were as a result of the generosity of the families of 77 deceased donors and the remaining 50 were from living kidney donors.
A further 9 specialist kidney transplants were performed on Irish HSE patients in the UK which included 7 extra living donors who travelled, with the recipients, to the UK for the operations.
St. Vincent’s University Hospital conducted 58 liver transplants in 2016. The Mater Hospital carried out 35 lung transplants as well as 15 heart transplants in 2016.
Beaumont Hospital performed 172 kidney transplants including a record 50 from living donors. There are over 4,450 people in Ireland being treated for kidney failure, with 2,075 ( 47%) undergoing dialysis treatment and, thanks to the gift of organ donation, 2379 ( 53%) people are enjoying extended life from a kidney transplant.