Radio star funds children’s treatment

RADIO and TV presenter Ray D’Arcy has made the largest ever single donation to the National Children’s Hospital.

As a result the hospital is now in a better position to treat children with serious lung and respiratory conditions, such as cystic fibrosis and asthma.

The Today FM DJ donated the entire €170,000 profit from the sale of his album Even Better Than the Real Thing, a collection of Irish artists performing cover versions of famous pop songs that was recorded on the station. The profits went to the Dublin hospital that takes referrals from around the country.

The money paid for a €60,000 cardiopulmonary exercise testing machine and funded a technician to operate it over the next three years.

The new equipment will ensure the earlier full assessment of children with a range of respiratory and cardiopulmonary conditions not previously available.

It will also result in earlier and more streamlined management of their treatment.

The new equipment will also provide an important resource for research into serious childhood illness at the National Children’s Hospital.

Paediatric respiratory consultant, Dr Peter Greally, said the new equipment would help them in both measuring children’s exercise capacity and also managing their medication and treatment requirements.

He said the hospital was also looking forward to using the equipment in a major epidemiological research project later this year.

Mr D’Arcy said he was thrilled that his donation had been spent on a permanent resource in the hospital’s service.

“The work that is carried out at the hospital is truly inspiring and it is imperative that the money continues to be raised to fund ongoing projects,” he said.

Even Better Than the Real Thing featured artists like Jack L (Can’t Get You Out Of My Head), Picturehouse (Sweet Dreams My LA-Ex) and Glen Hansard (Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River).