Welcome back to our second Newsletter of 2024. It has been a really busy couple of months in both our Mayo Hospice and Roscommon Hospice, as well as in the Community Palliative Care Services.
In May, we held our AGM and our annual public meeting. Our Chairman, Mike Smith, is heading into his final year in the role and it continues to be an absolute pleasure to work alongside him.
Mike, like all our directors, gives his time voluntarily and selflessly to the Foundation, and I am so grateful always for the support and advice from our board. The members always keep the needs of the patients and their families to the forefront of every decision they make, while also ensuring we are governed to the highest of standards.
At our annual public meeting in May, updates were provided on the services in both our Hospices, as well as our community service and our family therapist service. We will continue to fund, support and develop these services, with your help.
We are delighted also to fund an additional Clinical Nurse Specialist in Mayo to support the integration of a palliative care approach within nursing homes for residents, families, and all employees. This programme will engage with registered nurses, health care assistants and General Practitioners involved with the care of the resident in nursing homes. Non-clinical staff with an interest in palliative care will be welcome to engage with the programme also.
The aim of providing this education is to promote timely access to an appropriate level of palliative care for all residents with life-limiting conditions, and consequently avoiding unnecessary transfers to the acute services.
Our Roscommon Community Team have had a particularly challenging time over the past few years working with children and young adults with life-limiting illnesses. They have worked very closely with the Saolta Clinical Nurse Co-ordinators in the community to bring the very best service to these patients and their families. We were so proud to see the Minister for Health commend the work they do at the All Island Children’s Palliative Care Conference recently.
June 7th and 8th are our Annual Sunflower Days fundraiser, and we are so grateful to all our volunteers throughout both counties for helping us out at this busy time.
As always, thanks so much to all of you who have held fundraisers so far this year. We don’t take it for granted that you do this in your own time, and it is because of people like you that we have two state-of-the-art hospices in our region, along with an amazing community palliative care service.
Warm wishes, Martina Jennings
Chief Executive Officer
