News
Support group meeting for kids with Dyspraxia
The Galway Dyspraxia Support Group will hold their first evening meeting next week at the Connacht Hotel – with Mary O’Sullivan, the woman behind the resurgent group, calling on all parents of children with DCD/dyspraxia (which causes motor difficulties) to come along and get informed about the supports available to them in Galway.
Salthill resident Mary, together with a group of parents in a similar situation, decided to renew the group that had been set up by Ger Flaherty in the 1990s – but had since been wound down due to the children involved growing up.
It all began when the ‘Enable Mums’, as the group collectively refer to themselves, came together at a parenting course for children with the disorder at Enable Ireland’s Seamus Quirke Road Children’s Services Centre.
From there, they decided to meet for coffee outside the centre and bring in parents from all service providers – in the hope that they could benefit from one another’s experiences.
“We all said at the parenting course that we learned so much from each other.
“We knew where to go for the physical services but we wanted somewhere where we could talk about it, swap stories about what services worked well for us, what therapies worked well for us – so we said let’s meet for coffee,” explained Mary.
Since then the group, affiliated to the charity Dyspraxia DCD Ireland, has gone from strength to strength.
It now provides an outlet for parents to attain links to a summer camp run by Bushy Park primary school teachers Paul Kilgannon and Sinead O’Sullivan’s Fitness FUNdamentals company as well as various different service providers and clubs around the city and county.
A highlight for Mary has been the establishing of a basketball team dedicated to children with DCD/dyspraxia.
Activities like this, according to Mary, are key as they allow the children to get involved in exercise and fitness whilst also enjoying themselves.
Similarly, local chartered physiotherapist, Karen Roberts provides them with ‘Fun Physio’ – focussing on the development of core strength as means of making daily activities easier.
Mary explained that one of the stand-out moments for her was watching her daughter ride a bike for the first time – something that she never thought possible immediately after her diagnosis.
Thanks to the help of Enable Ireland’s dedicated unit to DCD/dyspraxia, she witnessed the ‘definitely can do’ attitude that occupational therapist, Sarah Butler, had professed to her from the beginning.
“Definitely can do is a nice way of putting it,” said Mary. “It may be just that they are slower to do it or that they will find another way of doing it.”
DCD/dyspraxia is a condition that affects about six per cent of the population – a shocking statistic when it is considered that this would equate to at least one child in every class at primary school level.
The disorder is described as a difficulty in developmental or movement skills. It can affect the body’s fine motor skills, gross motor skills and in some cases of DCD, sensory and processing skills.
For this reason, she believed that raising awareness was hugely important – especially given that it can be a “subtle” progression and hard to see at first glance.
■ The meeting takes place at 8pm on Wednesday, October 12, at the Connacht Hotel in Renmore.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
