*Maureen Hand and Dermot Hayes.
IN CELEBRATION of World Kidney Day a national funding drive and information campaign has been launched.
As part of World Kidney Day which is today (Thursday), the Irish Kidney Association the registered charity which supports thousands of kidney patients and their families, has launched a national fundraising drive and information campaign.
‘One in ten people’ is the slogan of the health awareness campaign while volunteers from the charity’s twenty five branches collected funds in Aldi stores across the country.
This is the IKA’s second year to use World Kidney Day as a focus for its primary grassroots fundraising campaign. According to a TILDA report, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) affects one in ten people, and one in seven individuals over the age of fifty yet ninety eight percent of the population don’t know they have it.
The campaign also aims to highlight how CKD can be detected by your GP through simple blood or urine tests. Early detection and management can slow down or prevent the progression of the disease to End Stage Kidney Disease (ESKD) where the only treatment is dialysis or a transplant.
At any one time in Ireland there are approximately 600 people on transplant waiting lists for heart, lung, liver kidney or pancreas and approximately 500 are waiting for kidney transplants.
Clare’s branch of the Irish Kidney Association will be holding their AGM on March 27th in Cois na hAbhna. The current Chairman is Corofin native and well-known activist Dermot Hayes.
