Transplant Medics & Recipients visit Circle of Life Garden
Medics from Spain, France and Italy and their Irish colleagues visited the Circle of Life Garden in Salthill during last year, as did members of the Irish Heart & Lung Transplant Association.
Siobhan Brosnan, Organ Donor Nurse Manager for Limerick University Hospital Group; Dr. Emer Curran, Consultant Intensivist, Intensive are Unit, GUH; Dr.Marti Manyalich, President of the International Society for Organ Donation & Transplantation and Dr. Entada Kondi, both from Barcelona; Dr. Nurla Masnou from Catalonia in Spain; Dr. Julien Charpentier, Paris; Dr. Francesco Procaccio, Rome; Dr. Kevin Clarkson, Consultant Intensivist, Intensive Care Unit GUH; Denis Goggin, Strange Boat Donor Foundation and Pauline May, Organ Donor Nurse Manager for Saolta Group. -----------------------------------------
Members of the Irish Heart and Lung Transplant Association also visited the Circle of Life Garden where they met with Denis & Martina Goggin.
(left) Paddy O'Mahony, Chairman of the Irish Heart & Lung Transplant Association speaking during the visit to the garden.
(right) Chris Darby from Delvin, Co. Westmeath, a heart recipient of 26 years standing at the Groote Schuur Stone which was gifted to the garden from the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town where the first heart transplant was performed in 1967 by Dr. Christiaan Barnard. Chris actually met Dr. Barnard in Helsinki in 1994 and was delighted to see a stone from Cape Town in the Global Heritage Walkway in the garden.
Heart & lung recipients and members of the IHLTA from all over Ireland travelled to Galway for the garden visit including: Sean O'Gormn from Tipperary, a heart recipient of nine years; Rosaleen Clasby from East Galway who received a double lung transplant earlier this year; Sally Whelan from Co. Laois, a double lung transplant recipient of three and half years and David Crosby from Cavan who also received a double lung transplant earlier this year.
