Birthday gift donation from Offaly

St. James’s Hospital is most grateful to have received a gift of almost €6,000 from Mrs Pauline O’Connor from Coolderry in Offaly. It represents gifts given to St. James’s in lieu of birthday gifts for Pauline, who celebrated her 60th birthday with family and friends in February this year. Pauline and her husband Gerry and their five children threw a party at The County Arms in Birr, where friends, neighbours, relatives and parishioners contributed most generously to the hospital with donations and by donating raffle prizes. Their donations were given for the Denis Burkitt Ward and also for cancer research at St. James’s.

Pauline had decided to ask her family and friends to donate to the hospital on the occasion of her 60th birthday as she said: “I would not have been celebrating my 60th birthday were it not for the staff at St. James’s Hospital and I really had, for some time, wanted to do something to say thank you.” She continued: “I am so grateful to my family for arranging the great party and I cannot thank our wider family and friends in Offaly enough for their support.”

St. James’s is the largest single provider of cancer treatment in Ireland and is the largest national centre for radiotherapy service. A major new government funded Cancer Care Centre and Radiation Oncology Centre is now open on the site and the facility for PET imaging for advanced patient diagnosis was the first such facility within a public hospital in Ireland.