Organ Donor Awareness Week marked with tree planting ceremony

 

Minister of State Sean Sherlock, Mary Kelly, Chairperson of Racing Home for Easter Festival, John Hurley, Kildorrery,  Mayor of County Cork Cllr John Paul O'Shea, Pat O'Sullivan, Mallow, and Mike Kiely and Noreen O'Halloran from Mitchelstown at the unveiling of a plaque and a tree  planted in honour of organ  donors at Mallow Primary Healthcare Centre last Good Friday as part of the  Racing Home for Easter Festival. Photo by Sean jefferies Photography.

Minister of State Sean Sherlock, Mary Kelly, Chairperson of Racing Home for Easter Festival, John Hurley, Kildorrery, Mayor of County Cork Cllr John Paul O’Shea, Pat O’Sullivan, Mallow, and Mike Kiely and Noreen O’Halloran from Mitchelstown at the unveiling of a plaque and a tree planted in honour of organ donors at Mallow Primary Healthcare Centre last Good Friday as part of the Racing Home for Easter Festival. Photo by Sean jefferies Photography.

To honour the selfless decision by the families of organ donors to donate the organs of their loved ones, a tree was laid and dedicated in the Mallow Primary Health Care Facility on Good Friday, March 25th. The formal dedication of the tree was performed by Cllr John Paul O’Shea Mayor of Cork County following some very kind words by Minister of State Sean Sherlock TD, and Mary Kelly Chairperson of the Racing Home for Easter Festival, which sponsored the tree and the plaque.

In attendance were four families who had made the decision to donate their loved ones’ organs, and members of the Cork branch of the Irish Kidney Association. Mallow Primary Health Care was represented by Dr Kevin Brennan. Families and friends and transplant recipients were also there to honour the donors.

The tree is on the right hand side of the road on the way into the centre after the roundabout. Families of the donors were extremely grateful for the thoughtful gesture of planting the tree, and some spent time at the tree later on which was a very solemn moment for them. The families had travelled from all parts of the county and from the recipients’ point of view it was a privilege to meet these wonderful people who had helped save the lives of so many; for every donor there are up to five lives saved through heart, liver, lungs and kidney transplants.

Organ Donor Awareness week starts this Saturday, April 2nd, and continues until the following Saturday, April 9th. Organ Donor Awareness Week is run to create public aware-ness of the importance of organ donation. People are encouraged to carry Organ Donor Cards, have it ticked on their driver’s licence or download it onto their phone, but the most important decision of all is to have a conversation with those closest to you and let them know that it is your decision to have your organs donated. It is also the biggest week in the calendar year for the organisation to help raise funds for patient aid and organising public awareness events.

At the end of 2015, there were 2,015 people in Ireland receiving dialysis treatment and 2,314 people with a kidney transplant, totalling 4,329 people in Ireland with End Stage Kidney Disease or 930 per million of population (PMP) patients with failed kidneys. This is well below the EU average of 1,100 PMP with failed kidneys, but as our population is one of the youngest in Europe, this is under-standable. However, as the Irish population ages, we can anticipate that we will get closer to the EU average and will require more dialysis facilities, if kidney transplantation cannot keep up with the demand, and in its current format it cannot.

There are 460 people on the kidney transplant waiting list which represents only 23% of the dialysis patients. The length of time it takes to be listed for a kidney transplant varies greatly across the country. While not all dialysis patients are transplantable, it is reasonable to

 predict that 35% are transplantable. In Ireland your time awaiting a kidney transplant is counted from the day you are placed on the waiting list, not like in many countries which count from the day you start dialysis. If all testing for the waiting list was completed swiftly, that would take the Irish waiting list for kidney transplants up to 700 people.

Our volunteers will be all over the county next week, so if you see them make sure you take an organ donor card. A special word of thanks to some people who helped make Friday’s tree planting ceremony possible, Eamonn O’Donnell, Timmy and Jesse Foley, Donal Attridge, Food Capers, Conor Healy of MPHC and the Racing Home For Easter Festival.