O'Carroll Consulting Releases

The Mater Foundation deeply appreciate the leadership shown by the Dublin’s U21 Football Team who won against Roscommon on Sunday and dedicated yesterday's All-Ireland success to the memory of Ciarán Carr, who passed away in a suspected case of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) earlier this year.

Ciaran Carr, from Clondalkin, Co Dublin, died suddenly as he was training with his local Round Towers GAA Club in January 2012. He was participating in an indoor circuit training session when he suddenly fell forward and collapsed.

“Huge congratulations to the Dublin U21 Football Team on their win. Dedicating this achievement to Ciaran was a wonderfully heartfelt tribute by Kevin, Seaghan and the team and we appreciate this opportunity to be involved in raising such vital awareness of SADS and Sudden Cardiac Death amongst the community.” Mary Moorhead, CEO of the Mater Foundation.

Dublin’s U21 Captain Kevin O’Brien dedicated the win to Ciaran in his victory speech in Tullamore and urged people to check out the www.sads.ie website.

Seaghan Kearney, who was part of the background team doing statistics, is a survivor of SADS and is also an active campaigner for the Mater Foundation Heart Appeal which aims to highlight the importance of early defibrillation and family screening.

The Mater Foundation funds the Family Heart Screening Clinic from donations made from the public. They have recently launched a website to SADS and you can visit it at www.sads.ie.

Ends

For further information, contact:

Arlene Hogan

Email- ahogan@materfoundation.ie

Phone- 01 854 5289

Mobile- 085-7327063

Notes

The Family Heart Screening Clinic is the first stand-alone screening clinic in Ireland offering a holistic approach to families coming through the door.  It is funded by the Mater Foundation. The aim of The Family Heart Screening Clinic is to try and reduce the incidence of these tragic deaths through screening relatives for hereditary conditions therefore preventing more needless and untimely deaths.

The Clinic provides a warm, friendly, non-clinical environment for immediate family members who have lost loved one’s under the age of 35 years to Sudden Adult Death Syndrome or Sudden Cardiac Death.  Since the clinic officially began screening families of young people who died suddenly, over 1,700 family members have been screened in Heart House.

Finances

Through fundraising efforts over the last five years the Mater Heart Appeal has raised over €2.4 million through voluntary sources of income to open and run the Family Heart Screening Clinic.  Currently, the Mater Foundation does not receive any funding from the HSE towards running this vital service.  Each year through the Mater Heart Appeal it is the aim to raise €300,000 per year towards the continual development of the clinic and the running costs.  

Moving Forward

In moving forward our aim is to continue developing the clinic and the services offered primarily through increasing the number of specialist staff working in the clinic, through research and through the development of our genetic testing.  Working with the other screening centres in Dublin, we are funding a specialist genetic counsellor.  This person will be in charge of a National Genetics Sudden Cardiac Death database, which will help us coordinate effective screening in the Irish screening centres.

Full ACT campaign pack downloadable at www.sads.ie.

Mater Foundation ACT pack which is aimed at creating awareness about the importance of having a defibrillator in all Health/Sports clubs, companies and organisations throughout Ireland. Representing three simple steps which could easily save someone’s life, the campaign calls for clubs with defibrillators to ‘A’, ensure that the defibrillator is Accessible, ‘C’ make sure it is Charged and ‘T’ that people are Trained how to use it.