Offaly represented at national event honouring organ donors

A number of local families were represented at a special service honouring organ donors at the weekend.

More than 1,000 people from all over Ireland converged at the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar for the 38th Irish Kidney Association Annual Service of Remembrance and Thanksgiving, on Saturday.

Leanne Walsh from Tullamore, Co Offaly whose late sister Michelle Kavanagh became an organ donor in 2019 took part in the opening procession.

Also participating in the event were members of the wider organ donation and transplant community, including medical, surgical, and nursing staff including Edenderry native Transplant Surgeon Gordon Smyth (Beaumont Hospital); and Carmela Malapit, a Filipino dialysis nurse at Midland Regional Hospital, Tullamore and wife of a kidney transplant recipient.

For many donor families the service has become an anniversary to remember loved ones, and for transplant recipients, it is an opportunity to honour and give thanks for the ‘gift of life’ they have received.

After the service, organ donor families viewed the names of their deceased donor loved ones inscribed in the Book of Remembrance, a roll of honour for organ donors.

The service will be broadcast on RTÉ One TV and RTÉ Radio One Extra on November 5 at 11am.

Individuals who wish to support organ donation are encouraged to Share their Wishes with their families and keep the reminders of their decisions available by carrying the organ donor card, permitting Code 115 to be included on their driver’s licences or having the ‘digital organ donor card’ app on their smartphones.