Support group for heart defect survivors

MÁIRÉAD BROSNAN is one of many young adults living with a serious congenital heart defect. Because of advances in cardiac surgery and medication in the last 20 years children with serious heart problems have reached adulthood.

Now they have an opportunity to meet up and enrich each other’s lives with the creation of a new national support network run by and for young adult congenital heart patients.

Next Thursday, the Canadian Ambassador, Mark Moher, will launch a new support group called Grown Up Heart Children (GUCH) in his Killiney home in Co Dublin.

The occasion will also be used by Heart Children Ireland, a support group for families of children with heart defects, to launch a fundraising drive to employ a clinical nurse specialist, who will manage a programme for young adults with heart problems in Dublin’s Mater Hospital.

Dympna Donnelly, chairperson of Heart Children Ireland, said she knew 40 teenagers and young adults, aged from 17 years upwards, who could benefit from GUCH. “Children who would have died about 20 years ago are surviving to adulthood, but we don’t know exactly how many are out there. That is why we are setting up the new support group now so it can reach out to them.”

Dympna said a lot of young adults would still be experiencing heart problems. “People like Máiréad are the first group who have reached their 20s with a chronic heart condition.” Máiréad, 23, from Liscarroll, near Mallow, in Co Cork, the fifth of a family of six girls, is a second-year student at Dublin Institute of Technology, who is hoping to eventually qualify as a cardiac technician.

When she was 13, Máiréad underwent major cardiac surgery at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. Unfortunately, she suffered a lot of setbacks afterwards and had to be hospitalised for three months. A heartbeat irregularity and a clotting problem means that she will be on medication for life. “That was 10 years ago and I have been doing fine ever since,” she says.

“There are lots of things I will never be able to do, like backpacking around Europe, but there are lots of other things I can do. I just don’t look at the bad side.”

Máiréad is anxious that as many people like her get to know about GUCH, a support organisation already established in other countries throughout the world. She has already met GUCH members from all over the world at conferences in England and Holland. “It was just amazing to meet so many people just like me at those conferences. When I left them everyone was crying because it was such an intense experience.`

Contact: e-mail: [e-mail] or letter post: Carmichael Centre, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7. Tel:[phone]