You are currently browsing the daily archive for 10 April 2004.
Martin to urge lung transplant for Billy
–By Evelyn Ring
HEALTH Minister Mícheál Martin is to urge surgeons involved in Ireland’s transplant programme to give a lung transplant to a young man struggling to stay alive.
Billy Burke, from Killorglin, Co Kerry, who has cystic fibrosis, says he has been denied a double organ transplant as a result of a Government agreement with a British hospital.
“Irish patients are being left to die because of this situation and I am not about to lie down and become a casualty of this bureaucracy. I have fought too long and too hard to be allowed to die over something as stupid as this,” the 29-year-old said yesterday.
Mr Burke has been waiting three-and-a-half years for the life-saving transplant but over a year ago was taken off the waiting list at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle after developing a lung infection.
A Manchester hospital has offered to carry out the transplant but Newcastle, which has ‘first call’ on donated Irish lungs, has not released organs for Mr Burke.
Department of Health officials will attend a meeting to review Ireland’s transplant agreement with the Freeman Hospital in Dublin next Friday.
The meeting will be attended by clinicians and administrators from Beaumont Hospital, who co-ordinate Ireland’s transplant programme, the Mater Hospital, where the country’s first lung transplant is to be conducted, and the Freeman Hospital. Newcastle’s hospital has conducted 47 lung transplants on Irish patients since 1999.
Mr Martin said that, on a human level, Mr Burke’s case was one of the toughest he had encountered during his political career.
“I sympathise with the minister but I have to fight my corner too,” said Mr Burke, who is on an oxygen machine 24 hours a day. “For me, every day is a struggle.”
Mr Burke has accused Newcastle of “cherry-picking” patients, and said they should no longer be in control of who gets a transplant. He said that responsibility should be handed over to the Mater Hospital.
Mr Burke was told four years ago he only had a year to live.
“I have beaten all the odds to come this far but I don’t know how long I will be able to keep going,” he said.
Irish organs should follow Irish patients, irrespective of which hospital carries out the operation, said Mr Burke, who described his outlook as very bleak.
“And it’s not just me,” he said.
“My name is being put forward but there are a lot of people like me all over Ireland who are not happy with the service they are getting from Newcastle.
“It has to be sorted out. Newcastle is playing God with Irish lives,” said Mr Burke.
BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | Man in murder inquiry released
Man in murder inquiry released
A 45-year-old man arrested in Belfast on suspicion of murder has been released without charge.
The man had been detained on the Grosvenor Road in the west of the city shortly before 1430 BST on Friday under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The arrest was in connection with the killing of Reserve Police Constable Colin Carson in Cookstown, County Tyrone in 1983.
He was released on Saturday after questioning at Antrim police station.
The police say a file on the matter will be sent to the director of public prosecutions.
ON THIS DAY | 10 | 1981: Hunger striker elected MP
ON THIS DAY | 10 | 1981: Hunger striker elected MP
1981: Hunger Striker elected MP
Imprisoned IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands has been elected to Westminster as the MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.
Sands stood as a candidate of the “Anti-H Block” campaign – the section of the Maze prison in Belfast reserved for republicans and loyalists convicted of terrorist offences.
He won just over 52% of the vote in the Northern Ireland by-election compared to 49% for the candidate of the Official Unionist party, Harry West.
Sands’ winning margin was 1,400 but over 3,000 ballot papers were spoiled.
Recriminations have already begun over his victory.
Unionist parties have come under fire for not mounting an effective challenge.
There has also been sharp criticism of the failure of the moderate Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party to contest the seat.
Many believe the absence of an alternative Catholic candidate ensured victory for Sands in a seat with a Catholic majority.
Bobby Sands’ election agent, Owen Carron, said the British Government had been sent a message.
“The nationalist people have voted against Unionism and against the H blocks.
“It is time Britain got out of Ireland and put an end to the torture of this country,” he said.
Sands, 27, has served four years of a 14-year sentence for possessing firearms.
He began his hunger strike 41 days ago to press the republican prisoners’ claim to be treated as prisoners of war.
The government must now decide how to respond to Bobby Sands’ victory.
It could try to have him expelled on the grounds that he is an “unacceptable member”.
However, unless he starts to eat again, Sands is not expected to live for more than another few weeks.
He has already lost two stone and is too weak to leave his bed in the prison’s hospital wing.
Bobby Sands Trust
On 10 April 1981, Bobby Sands is elected to a seat in the british parliament in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election.
On March 23rd Bobby was moved to prison hospital due to his weakening condition.
ELECTION
On March 30th, he was nominated as candidate for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election, caused by the sudden death of Frank Maguire, an independent MP who supported the prisoners’ cause.
The next morning, day 31 of his hunger-strike, he was visited by Owen Carron, who acted as his election agent. Owen told of that first visit “Instead of meeting that young man of the poster with long hair and a fresh face, even at that time when Bobby wasn’t too bad he was radically changed. He was very thin and bony and his hair was cut short.”
Bobby had no illusions with regard to his election victory. His reaction was not one of over-optimism. After the result was announced Owen visited Bobby. “He had already heard the result on the radio. He was in good form alright but he always used to keep saying, ‘In my position you can’t afford to be optimistic.’ In other words, he didn’t take it that because he’d won an election that his life would be saved. He thought that the Brits would need their pound of flesh. I think he was always working on the premise that he would have to die.”
Sean Mackin arrested in Belfast
Sean Mackin.
Leading NY Irish republican charged with ’83 murder
By Anne Cadwallader
acadwallader@irishecho.com
BELFAST, April 9 — Sean Mackin, a well-known Irish republican and fundraiser for Friends of Sinn Fein and a New York resident for many years, was arrested in Belfast today and charged with murder.
Sinn Fein has demanded the immediate release of Mackin and has contacted the US consulate in Belfast to protest his arrest. The police allegedly beat Mackin as he was being arrested.
A spokesperson for the Police Service of Northern Ireland would say only that: “a 45-year-old man was arrested by uniformed officers on suspicion of murder at Grosvenor Road, west Belfast, at 2.30.”
“He was taken to the Antrim Serious Crimes Suite for questioning.” Mackin is being held under the Terrorism Act 2000. Sinn Fein, family and friends of Mackin confirmed that he had been arrested.
The murder in question is believed to be that of Reserve Constable Colin Carson, killed in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, on May 26, 1983.
Mackin, who is a US citizen, was allegedly dragged from a car and punched by police officers during the arrest operation on Friday on the Grosvenor Road in west Belfast. Sinn Fein said a child witnessed the arrest and that Mackin had shouted, “Run to Roisin’s” (a reference to his sister’s house nearby).
When his sister contacted the police, according to Sinn Fein, they denied they had him in custody. When a solicitor contacted the police some time later, they confirmed they had Mackin in custody in Antrim.
Sinn Fein said there was outrage in the area at Mackin’s arrest. A spokesman said he was a frequent and open visitor to the area and had never been arrested before.
Mackin is believed to have been a member of the INLA for many years before he moved to the U.S.
Sinn Féin’s policing spokesperson, Gerry Kelly, demanded Mackin’s immediate release whom he described as a political refugee.
Kelly said, “Sean Mackin was visiting family in west Belfast as he has often done in the past when he was trailed from his car in the Roden Street area, assaulted and bundled into an unmarked PSNI vehicle.”
“This vindictive arrest is outrageous and I am demanding the immediate release of Sean Mackin. Sinn Féin has been in contact with the US Consulate regarding this very serious matter.”
“This action coming in the week when evidence of the Special Branch involvement in various criminal activities including murder was unveiled by Judge Cory is further evidence of the influence of the old regime over current policing arrangements.”
This story appeared in the issue of April 7-13, 2004
Ciaran Ferry Legal Defense Fund
* Ciarán Ferry has been illegally
imprisoned by the U.S. Government
for 436 days . *
SAOIRSE32 
Recent Comments