REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF “DONOR HOUSE” ON FRIDAY 26TH JULY, 2002
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF “DONOR HOUSE” ON FRIDAY 26TH JULY, 2002
Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu agus muid ag céiliúradh an ócáid mhór seo. Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl daoibh as an chuireadh agus as fáilte a bhí caoin, cneasta agus croíúil.
As patron of the Irish Kidney Association, I am delighted to be here today to officially open ‘Donor House’, the new headquarters of the Association. My special thanks to Lorraine Costello, the Association’s Patient Support Officer, for the invitation and to all of you for the lovely welcome.
This new and much needed facility has become a reality only because so many people worked tirelessly and with great determination and focus to make it so. No one did it for thanks but each is owed a huge debt of gratitude for ‘Donor House’ is an essential resource, a credible resource and an accessible resource for those coping with renal failure and all the challenges it brings.
Kidney disease is not the kind of news any of us would want to receive and would stretch and sorely test the best of us – the time waiting for confirmation of diagnosis, the time spent on dialysis, the time waiting for a suitable organ, the post-transplant period, all the suffering, physical and emotional, the endurance, the worry - yes, even the strongest has need of a place like Donor House, where these concerns are deeply understood, where they are very familiar, where people are there to help find solutions and not simply dwell on problems.
Unlike diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease, chronic nephritis is of course predominantly a disease of the young. But while it develops most frequently in the first three decades of life its slow insidious progress often goes unnoticed until long after the damage has occurred. Sadly young men and women are often admitted to hospital in advanced stages of kidney failure unaware that the disease has been present for the previous 10 or 15 years. So public education, professional education and research are crucial in the prevention and treatment of kidney disease and here too we are deeply indebted to the relentless work of the Irish Kidney Association. As a voluntary organization with an impressive twenty-three branches nation-wide, for almost a quarter of a century you have provided a range of services, programmes and supports of growing sophistication and impact. Your work has changed lives for the better and not just among sufferers. The way in which you promote awareness of organ donation has consequences far beyond kidney disease. You prise open the public conscience, making us aware of our obligations and responsibilities to one another. You challenge us to find generosity and unselfishness in the most difficult and pitiable of circumstances. You tread on fragile places with profound sensitivity and at the same time with uncompromising passion for life itself. These are not easy things to do and difficult things to ask of people but during the big fund-raising Forget-me-Not Week, which is also Donor Awareness Week, the public are subtly sensitized to questions some of them will tragically have to face. The donation of the organs of a loved one is the ultimate gift, an act of the most profound goodness and I hope an act that brings some comfort, some healing to the donor’s family. We know it brings quite literally, life itself to the recipients.
On behalf of all those people you have helped and all those you will help I say a heartfelt thank you to the Irish Kidney Association for making that gift of life possible. Besides the immediate and obvious effects of your work it is worth reminding ourselves that at another level it builds up our civic strength, our moral character as a people, our human decency and our capacity for kindness. It would be a much colder world without you but with you Ireland is a much better place and getting better all the time. You have helped us on a journey of understanding of kidney disease and with this new resource I hope the journey ahead will be easier.
It gives me great pleasure to officially open ‘Donor House.’
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.