Make Dreams True This Christmas

The ambulance has just brought in Catherine. She is in real distress. Catherine is a nine year-old Cystic Fibrosis patient with suspected life-threatening pneumonia.

Meanwhile tiny, premature Jill is under 24-hour observation in Intensive Care – she was born with only half of her heart functioning.

Over in St Michael’s Ward, 4 year-old Johnny is pale and exhausted but breathing normally after a frightening, acute asthma attack.

Even at Christmas, it’s business as usual at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin.

However, despite all of this very real drama and worry, I think a lovely seasonal atmosphere still survives all around the hospital every Christmas. The staff and volunteers really pull out all the stops.

But the coloured lights and decorations disguise a major problem. They hide buildings and facilities in vital need of major repair and replacement. They hide the critical need for new equipment. They hide the fact that parents have to sleep in cramped spaces on the floor beside their children’s cots.

And very few people realise the urgent need for funding to keep our world-renowned medical research programmes moving ever closer to new treatments and cures.

I don’t want Playstation I just want to go home for Christmas.

Your extraordinary generosity has helped transform entire departments of this hospital. You have helped create world-class wards like St Michael’s – a healthy, fit-for-purpose environment – a world apart from the 1950’s conditions of other wards like St John’s Cancer Ward and St Theresa’s Critical Care Cardiac Unit.

Having done so much for Ireland’s most-ill children, I wish I didn’t have to ask you for help again – especially in these hard times for everyone. All I can do is to remind you about the real, tangible and inspirational difference your generosity has made – and how much sick children and their families appreciate every single, important euro you’ve given. Thank you.

I wish you could witness the wonderful, new facilities in St Michael’s Ward and the new Emergency Department. What an amazing legacy you have left!

But what a huge contrast – if you walked through the wards we urgently need to repair or replace.

I believe we have no choice – we have to fund these pressing projects. Unfortunately, that means raising more money. But we’ve achieved great things in the past and we’re not going to let sick children down now.

Today, I hope you are able to give another great Christmas gift to continue and build on that lasting difference you’ve made. Will you consider a gift of €80 or whatever you can afford?

You already know the care in Crumlin is up there with the very best in the world. But it’s an entirely different story when it comes to facilities. Here’s why we need you:

Take for example our cancer services. With your help we’re rebuilding the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at a cost €1.3m. And what a wonderful, modern facility it will be!

But the Cancer Ward itself is in serious disrepair.

There are no private rooms for critical and terminally-ill babies and children. No private bathroom facilities for children and their parents. There are no appropriate facilities for teenagers. No parent accommodation.

Take the Cardiac Unit where tiny Jill is being monitored 24 hours a day. Did you know that over 500 children have serious surgery here every year? Like little Jill, about 50 of them are born with half a heart – these are very complex single ventricle patients.

There are two very important needs these cases point up – facilities and medical research.

First, I’m sure you agree – children with heart problems, aggressive cancer or any serious illness need the very best of care, facilities and equipment. Orla Franklin, one of our Cardiologists explains some of the challenges:

“While the standards of medical and nursing care are second to none the ward infrastructure does not meet the needs of our nation’s sickest children. Many parents whose children have heart disease spend months in Crumlin Can you imagine travelling up from Cork or Letterkenny only to find that if you want to stay beside your sick baby that you sleep on a matress on the floor between the cot and the sink? No privacy. No place to shower or cook. It’s just unacceptable.‘

Secondly, many children with single ventricle complications need three-step surgery to survive. There is potential for most of them to live to 20 to 30 years old. But if our cutting-edge medical research is properly funded, I believe a healthy life can be extended far beyond that.

You already know about some of these world-acclaimed research programmes we run. We’ve made startling discoveries and advances in studying cell changes in deadly childhood cancer tumours.

In understanding allergic responses in severe eczema.

In searching for the causes of lung damage in children with life-limiting Cystic Fibrosis.

In studying birth defects and in investigating many other important areas of health-enhancing research.

However, again, the missing piece is funding. Will you once again step into the breach and make a

wonderful donation of €80 to fund crucial improvements in facilities and cutting edge research?

Dear Santa please get my lungs working again

As Santa does his rounds all over Ireland, the incidental images we see in Crumlin Hospital each Christmas Eve night are moving, extraordinary, sometimes very sad, most times incredibly uplifting.

A Christmas stocking hanging on the end of a cancer care cot.

Mum and Dad stealing an emotional hug as one arrives for the night watch and one leaves to be home for their other children’s Christmas morning surprises. A furry Rudolf held in the tiny fingers of a sleeping infant in an intensive care incubator.

Around here at Christmas, everyone multi-tasks – Santa and his helpers wear stethoscopes, carry thermometers and push food trolleys.

Please help us make this Christmas – and so many Christmases to come – as happy, healthy and hopeful as possible for all of Ireland’s seriously ill children and their families.

Please give little Catherine, Johnny and Jill – and thousands of other seriously ill kids – one of the best and most impactful Christmas presents you’ve ever given. Give them the facilities, modern medical equipment and world-class research they and their families so badly need.

Thank you again for all your support and generosity.  A joy-filled and peaceful Christmas to you and yours,

Joe Quinsey

CEO, The Children’s Medical & Research Foundation

Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin

P.S. Around now, children in Crumlin Hospital will be writing their letters to Santa. As well as some of the normal presents every child dreams of, most of our little patients here just ask to feel well enough to get home for Christmas. With better facilities and equipment, we can ensure children will spend less time in hospital. Will have less pain and discomfort. And urgent investment in our worldclass research will also ensure that we have better prevention, better treatments and even cures for the most serious childhood illnesses. Please, make the spirit of Christmas real – give a truly moving gift this Christmas. Thank you.