.
Regina Reynolds, National Organ Donor Coordinator, ODTI; Teresa Looney, Tralee; Ellen Flanagan, Ardfert; Ambassador Vivienne Traynor; Con Brosnan and his niece Karen Brosnan, from Killarney launching Organ Donor Awareness week.
A GROUP of people from Kerry helped kidney donor and RTÉ broadcaster Vivienne Traynor launch Organ Donor Awareness Week 2016 which is organised by the Irish Kidney Association.
The RTE reporter has taken up the voluntary role of ambassador for the week. Like the previous ambassador Mary Kennedy, Vivienne has also a deep personal connection to organ donation. Vivienne’s nephew Martin Traynor underwent two kidney transplants, his first for which she was the living kidney donor and five years later his second transplant was from a deceased donor.
The announcement of Vivienne’s ambassadorship was made this weekend when she made a presentation to members from the 25 countrywide branches of the Irish Kidney Association at its headquarters at Donor House, Park West, Dublin 12.
Kerry people at the event included Teresa Looney from Tralee, Ellen Flanagan, Ardfert and Con and Karen Brosnan from Killarney.
Continued below…
.
Vivienne, the RTÉ News Anchor and Courts Correspondent, who is married to RTE sports presenter and Emo native Justin Treacy, witnessed first-hand the whole process of organ donation and transplantation from a deceased donor for her nephew Martin (now age 35) in November 2014.
This was a very different experience from five years previously when she was a living kidney donor to him. Following the first transplant which they underwent in the UK, Martin became a father for the first time to Ted (now 3).
Vivienne, the 44 year old mother of four, also completed a Law Degree in 2014. The circle of life continued after Martin’s second transplant at Beaumont Hospital and he and his partner Mary have since become parents for the second time with a baby sister Daisy (now 10 months) for Ted.
Vivienne said; “When news came through that a second kidney was available for Martin I was at first elated but this feeling was very quickly replaced by thoughts for the deceased donor and their family. I was really touched that a family in the midst of all their grief took the time to consider someone else. I cannot find the words to express what that meant to us at that moment, on that day and every day since. It is something I think of regularly and I know Martin thinks about it every day. To see Martin come back from surgery in a matter of hours and given a whole new lease of life was one of the greatest things I have witnessed. The kindness of strangers meant so much to us that day.”
Vivienne explained that; “I was honoured to be able to donate a kidney to Martin in July 2009 following his three years of dialysis treatment. My sister Gina, Martin’s aunt, had also come forward for testing but my kidney was chosen towards the end of the testing process. Both Martin and I made a good recovery after the operations and the successful transplant allowed him to enjoy a normal life for five years away from dialysis and in that time he became a father. However in 2013 signs of Martin’s original condition, IgA nephropathy, returned and it started to affect the transplanted kidney. By mid-2014 he was back on dialysis and eventually placed back on the waiting list for another transplant. He was just six weeks on the list when a kidney from a deceased donor became available in November 2014.”
“I am delighted to have been invited by the Irish Kidney Association to be the ambassador for Donor Awareness Week and I hope that by sharing the story of donation and transplantation in our family we can help other families to start the conversation about their wishes surrounding deceased organ donation.”
Organ Donor Awareness Week also serves as a fundraising exercise for the Irish Kidney Association. Throughout the Week ( 2nd April – 9th April, 2016), the Association’s volunteers will be out on the streets, and in shopping centres throughout the country, selling ‘forget-me-not-flower’ emblems, brooches, pens and shopping trolley discs.
All proceeds will go towards the Irish Kidney Association’s aid for patients on dialysis and those patients fortunate enough to have received a kidney transplant. The IKA has introduced another fundraising technique. You can text “kidney” to 50300 and €2 will be donated from your mobile phone account to the IKA.
Organ Donor Cards can also be obtained by phoning the Irish Kidney Association LoCall 1890 543639 or Freetext the word DONOR to 50050. Visit website www.ika.ie
