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Inside ‘Donal’s Den’, a special room in the new 15-bed specialist palliative in-patient unit at University Hospital Kerry, were Elma Walsh, former Rose of Tralee Elysha Brennan, Kate Brennan and Valerie Kerins on Friday afternoon. Photo by Dermot Crean
THE wonderful new Palliative Care Unit was officially opened last Friday at University Hospital Kerry and among its many great facilities is a new space for younger people.
‘Donal’s Den’ is a room funded by the Donal Walsh ‘LiveLife’ Foundation and Fionnbar and Elma Walsh were at the unit to see the room, which fulfilled a request Donal had for the new unit.
“When Donal was in palliative care, there were no facilities for teenagers, even when he went to Marymount in Cork,” said Elma.
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“The one thing that he asked was that there would be teenage facilities brought into the new hospice here in Tralee. So the Foundation has donated €80,000 to help the Hospice and to include a teenage facility,” she said.
The room has beanbags, a large TV and there are more facilities to go in there soon.
“If there is a teenage patient here they could bring their friends down there to hangout and have a pizza or something,” said Elma.
Elma showed former Rose of Tralee, Elysha Brennan, herself a former Cancer sufferer, around the room on Friday and she was impressed with Donal’s Den and the unit as a whole.
That’s lovely. My own mum died before a unit at all and the difference now is unreal.