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Pat Buckley receiving his raffle prize from Karen Fitzgerald at the Mercy University Hospital Cork.

Pat Buckley from Glenville won the €2,000 first prize in The Mercy Hospital Annual Raffle in aid of The Mercy Stroke Appeal, which raised over €54,000 in total.

Over the past few months, staff at the Mercy Hospital Foundation contacts hundreds of household across Cork City and County asking them to support the charity’s annual raffle. Each year in Ireland 10,000 people will suffer from a stroke, 2,000 will die as a result, and for those who survive, their quality of life can be seriously impacted.

On receiving his prize, Mr Buckley said: “I am a supporter of the Mercy, having been an outpatient in the hospital over the years. I’ve always been treated so well there, and supporting campaigns like the raffle is my way of giving something back.”

The Stroke Unit at the Mercy University Hospital Cork is one of the newest facilities of its kind in Ireland and was the first specialist Stroke Unit to open in Cork. In the next three years The Mercy Stroke Appeal will raise €200,000 to invest in upgrading the unit and facilities.

The quality of care for stroke patients will be further enhanced as funds raised through the raffle will be used to purchase three specialist bedside chairs at a cost of €1,600 each.

Funds raised will also be used to commission three modular wheelchairs, at a cost of €3,000 each, that can be titled and adapted to the patient’s needs to again help with recovery and rehabilitation; as well as to support the Stroke Unit with a number of other items to make every day of recovery more comfortable for patients at the Mercy.

Speaking about life after a stoke, Karen Fitzgerald, Stroke Clinical Nurse Specialist at the Mercy, said: Imagine not being able to talk to your loved ones. Imagine only being able to watch as the world around you continues. Imagine your busy, hectic life completely changing in an instant, to be left disabled and dependent on other people.

“Funds raised by the 2014 raffle will not just help us save lives, but restore dignity and hope and it will also help us to strive towards helping patients get their lives back to the way they were. Sometimes it is the small things that make a big difference,” she said.

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