House sale to benefit hospital cystic fibrosis unit
And part of the fund-raising involves the sale of two, four-bed houses in Castleisland, Co Kerry.
The Clonough scheme is the development of builder Joe Browne, whose own son suffers from the disease. He came up with the idea to sell two houses and donated the site, while each unit was built, finished and furnished through voluntary effort alone.
The sale of the semis, (one is already gone), will go some way to Build4Life’s target and fund the overall budget of €4 million for a dedicated unit for CF patients in Cork and Kerry.
The charity are lobbying hard for the creation of a specialised, 10-bed, day unit in CUH, and are also looking for a further 10 ‘protected beds’ in the hospital’s respiratory unit.
“Cork is the second busiest centre in Ireland and that will only increase. We have 200 CF sufferers out of a national total of 1,100 and no facilities — absolutely none,” says Joe Browne.
“CF patients’ immune systems are very low and hospitals are a highly contagious environment — they don’t really want to got to hospital, but if they have to they need a bed and en suite facilities. And, as they tend to spend a lot of their time there, they need to be treated with dignity and respect. Cork University Maternity Hospital is state-of-the-art and most patients are gone in two days — and look at the luxury.”
Concerned parents have raised a lot of money — they’re now close to the €1.5m target as their contribution for the dedicated unit. The rest will be funded by the HSE.
In the meantime, he has made a call for more philanthropy in the Cork/Kerry region. “Limerick has seen a lot of investment by JP McManus and I’m appealing for the biggest and best business people in the region to support our cause. We’ve been waiting 20 years — let’s dig in.”
Only one of the charity’s two houses in Castleisland remain to be sold at €265,000 through joint agents Savills HOK and Sherry FitzGerald Stuart.
Ten minutes from Tralee, the four beds offer 1,440 square feet apiece and come fully furnished to showhouse standards.
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