THE stage is set for a fantastic line-up of dog racing for a great cause when the Friends of Kerry General Hospital hold their annual Gala Benefit Night on Friday.
The event in Kingdom Greyhound Stadium, supported by Kerry Group, has raised in excess of €1.2 million since its inauguration in 1991 and these funds raised have been used for the provision of essential equipment at the hospital which delivers critical services to families throughout County Kerry, West Limerick and North Cork.
The event will feature quality racing and other entertainment throughout the night and usually draws the biggest attendance of the year to the track. There will be face painting, a bouncy castle, best dressed lady competition, terrier racing and much more besides.
Admission is €10 for adults, €5 for students and OAPs and children under 12 go in free.
This year’s fundraising target of €75,000 will be used toward the purchase of specialist cardiac equipment to improve the survival of patients who have major heart attacks.
“Heart disease is Ireland’s number 1 killer – with approximately 10,000 Irish people dying each year from cardiovascular disease – more deaths than breast cancer, prostate cancer and bowel cancer combined,” said Dr Martin Boyd, a consultant in accident and emergency medicine at Kerry General Hospital.
“The largest number of these relate to heart attacks. Providing optimal blood flow to a patient in cardiac arrest by performing quality, uninterrupted CPR is widely thought to have a positive impact on improving overall survival. However, manual CPR can sometimes be inaccurate and exhausting for those performing it but thankfully new tools like the automated cardiac compressor can now provide a consistent rate and depth of compression – vastly improving the effectiveness of CPR.”
“Essentially, an automated cardiac compressor acts as another set of hands, freeing up the medical team to focus on other crucial measurements to save the patient,” he said.
Frank Hayes, Director of Corporate Affairs of sponsor Kerry Group commented: “Kerry Group is once again delighted to be to be supporting Kerry General Hospital’s Gala Fundraising Night which is one of the most worthy community benefit events at Tralee’s Greyhound Stadium. I have no doubt that this year’s event will once again enable the organisers to reach their fundraising target of €75,000 for Kerry General Hospital.”