REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE IRISH BLOOD TRANSFUSION SERVICE DONATION CLINIC
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE IRISH BLOOD TRANSFUSION SERVICE BLOOD DONATION CLINIC, STILLORGAN, DUBLIN
Dia dhíbh a cháirde. Tá áthas orm bheith i bhur measc inniu.
It’s good to be with you today as we gather to celebrate another important achievement in the history of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service – the official opening of the new Blood Donation Clinic here in Stillorgan. I am grateful to Andrew Kelly, Acting Chief Executive of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service for inviting me to perform the opening today.
A little over three years ago I was privileged to be asked to open the donor clinic in D’Olier Street, in December 2000. I hear it has been a great success in the intervening years and I have no doubt the same will soon be said of this fine new premises in Stillorgan.
70,000 or more people will need a blood transfusion this year. Around 3,000 units of blood are needed each week. There is no day when the job is finished, when the work of this service can stop. Each day, every day, not only do you have to be here to take the blood that is offered, you also have the formidable task of ensuring that enough members of the public commit to this most essential of public services. You rely entirely on public goodwill and while we are fortunate to have so many caring and generous people there is no science to giving, no compulsion to volunteering and so some days you face more than the everyday hurdles. I read on your website in the past few days that on one given Monday (19th January, 2004) the actual store of blood was almost 500 units below the 3,000 unit anticipated demand. It is on days like that we all realise the need for clinics like this.
With so many more people in employment than ever before in our history, with so many people living very busy lives, your service has to be where people are. You have to put their convenience high on the agenda. The mobile clinics have been hugely successful for that very reason and of course thanks to the marvellous network of local volunteers who work so hard to ensure that clinics are well advertised locally and well organised. The spirit of voluntarism is at the very heart of this service and so much that is done in its name is done without thought of thanks or praise and yet both are richly deserved.
Part of the culture created by the IBTS is of a welcoming and friendly place and that mood is part of the reason this service is so successful. That mood is replicated very obviously here in Stillorgan. It is a mood created not just by pleasant surroundings but by a trusted, skilled and caring team.
The Irish saying ‘ar scath a chéile a mhaireann na daoine’ we need and depend on each other, comes to mind. It is easy to forget just how much we depend on one another until a crisis propels us into a situation where we depend on blood donated by a stranger. Staff, donors, recipients and their families form a web of support for the service with the donors at the very centre of that web of relationships. Donors are truly remarkable people, often travelling long distances to attend clinics. Despite competing demands on their time, often despite personal inconvenience, they make special space in their lives to donate blood, because they know how desperately others are in need of their help. Their blood goes to people they will never meet, strangers whose gratitude they will never know; and yet thankfully they do so year after year to help relieve the suffering of others. They are the very epitome of everything that is good and decent about the people of this island and I know that some of those heroes and heroines are here with us today. Our thanks to you for that selflessness and care, that witness to our capacity for life-changing goodness to one another.
I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Tadgh Corcoran, Facilities Manager, Ciaran Healy, Donor Services Manager and Bernie Conolly, Director of Nursing, whose hard work and commitment has played a vital role in getting this clinic up and running. I would also like to pay tribute to the board of management of the IBTS, Andrew Kelly and the National Medical Director, Dr William Murphy who are charged with guiding the organisation through this period of tremendous change.
The continued success of the organisation depends as always on the loyalty of its donors. They possess the ability to give the gift of life and are literally the lifeblood of the service. I urge donors, old and new, to avail of this impressive new facility and to give blood in the coming years with the same unselfishness displayed by generations of donors in the past. May Stillorgan be inundated with offers of help and lives be helped and healed because this place is here.
Guím gach rath agus séan ar bhur gcuid oibre san am ata le teacht. Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.