Parents told raise $250k more for treatment

THEY left Ireland for the US last week with a possible cure for their critically ill daughter within reach.

But devoted parents, Tony and Mary Heffernan, were devastated at the weekend after American doctors told them, Saoirse, five, who has the rare neurological condition Batten’s Disease, is not suitable for an experimental medical trial subsidised by the US federal government.

The parents, from Co Kerry, are in a race against time to raise another $250,000 (€180,000) to secure Saoirse’s place on a US hospital-run parallel trial later this year.