Nearly 300 Galway families avail of special facilities beside Children’s Hospital

For 291 Galway families, the Ronald McDonald House beside Crumlin Children’s Hospital has been a home away from home during the most stressful period of their lives.

Grateful families who have availed of the facility since it opened 12 years ago are now fundraising to build a new €16m accommodation complex on the site of the new children’s hospital at St James’s Hospital, due to open in 2020.

The Donald family from Roscahill have lived in the Ronald McDonald House for five months over the past three years since twins Cate and Ciarán were born.

Cate was diagnosed at 20 weeks’ gestation with complex congenital heart disease. At 30 weeks, mum Caroline had to rent an apartment in Dublin to ensure she would deliver in Dublin where more specialised medics were based.

A week after Cate was born at 36 weeks in July 2013, she underwent open heart surgery, weighing just 4.5 pounds.

Ciarán had a few problems and was kept in the High Dependency Unit in the Coombe, while Cate was born in the Coombe but transferred immediately to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin.

“We moved into the Ronald McDonald House with our newborn baby and took it in turns to go from the house to the ward which was a stone’s throw away. My baby was dying and you didn’t want to leave the hospital grounds, but at the same time you have to mind the other kids. We had no friends or family in Dublin – it was an absolutely crucial service,” recalls Caroline.

“We were back in again for a second open heart major surgery the following January. At night you’re so tired after spending 17/18 hours on the ward, so emotionally drained as all the kids in there are very, very sick.

“You’re shook to the core. Here was a place you’d come back to where you’d have a cooked dinner, you could get the laundry done, you wouldn’t have to go off grocery shopping.”

Staff and volunteers go out of their way to offer support to stressed families, organising special occasion evenings such as candlelit dinners on Valentine’s Day and beauty therapies on Mother’s Day to give a little boost.

An outdoor and indoor play area allows siblings to retain some sort of normalcy during the hospital stay while families have access to a communal lounge and dining room.

Cate returned for her third major surgery this year, with some more minor procedures earmarked for the near future. She attends University Hospital Galway once a week with regular check-ups in Dublin. Eventually she will have to undergo a heart transplant.

Baby Patrick was born within a year of the twins so it’s been all hands on deck for the Donalds.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.