Why I hope my mother, Anna, didn’t die in vain

Lorraine Doherty hopes other sufferers of genetic emphysema won’t die, as her mother did, last year, because of the HSE’s refusal to pay for drugs, writes Health Correspondent Catherine Shanahan

Anna Cassidy drove a tractor and did as much work as any man on the small family farm in Mullinbuoys, Mountcharles, Co Donegal.

She and her husband, Alan, were tight-knit. “They did everything together,” says their daughter, Lorraine Doherty.