Carlow GAA Members Encouraged To Donate Blood
Carlow GAA in association with the Irish Blood Transfusion Service have launched a health and wellbeing initiative to encourage GAA members to donate blood.
As part of the initiative a promotional video was also launched, in memory of Myshall and Carlow GAA player Oisín Kelly who passed away on 10th August 2023 from osteosarcoma (bone cancer).
Oisín was a blood recipient and throughout his illness he campaigned for the importance of donating.
Carlow GAA hope the promotional video will be circulated through all GAA clubs via all social media platforms.
At the launch of the video Brendan Kelly, father of Oisín, spoke to encourage as many people as possible to donate blood.
“I want to thank all those people who have do so much work to get us to this point but the acid test for us will be, have we increased donations? Have we increased supply?
“One in four of us will need a donation at some point and we are going to need it when we are at our most vulnerable. 67% of the demand for blood is for cancer and cancer affects one in every two families.
“Every blood donation saves three lives.
“Ireland is behind internationally when it comes to blood donation which is surprising as we are very generous as nation so we need to get ourselves up there.
“Donating is so easy. We produce blood like a cow produces milk, it’s natural, it’s normal and it’s not as if we have to make any decisions about trade off or think between the positives and negatives. It’s very, very simple but the impact of that is huge.”
