Baby Joy to undergo life-saving operation next week

A two-year-old girl in urgent need of open heart surgery is to have her life-saving operation next week.

Joy Lawlor Doyle, who was adopted from Vietnam and lives in Dublin, had received the offer of money from a benefactor to go to Great Ormonde St Hospital in England to have the operation.

However, Crumlin Children's Hospital in Dublin has since informed the family that Joy is scheduled for surgerythere on December 4.

Her parents Mark and Gemma did not expect the operation to happen until next year, after it was postponed this year, so are delighted with the outcome.

The couple are having a double celebration as the hospital and the HSE have now agreed to run an initiative over three to four months, starting in January, which will result in a fourth operating day in Crumlin.

Her parents had blamed the wait for Joy's operation on the HSE for not putting in place beds for critically-ill children recovering from major surgery for another 18 months.