Every 3 minutes someone in Ireland receives a cancer diagnosis
Mark Mellett is the Head of Fundraising for the Irish Cancer Society, so who better to tell us how important the funds raised for Dare To Care are? And what the money does.
Speaking on Today FM's Dermot and Dave, Mark says;
We raise €24 million every year. That's what it takes to deliver all the services that we do every day and to fund all the research we want to do
That's a serious amount of dosh!
Mellett goes on to explain exactly where all the money raised goes to - like the Night Nurse service, which we learned about in our recent chat with Aoibheann Murray. It has provided 7,433 nights of care to patients around the country.
Also sadly, when we can't save a life, we want to be there as well. And that's where the night nursing comes in
Then there's the Volunteer Drivers service, which currently operates in 23 hospitals around the country and transports patients to and from their chemotherapy treatment. Nationally, drivers clocked up over 1.2million kilometres as they brought patients to over 12,000 lifesaving treatment sessions last year.
Huge resources are also put into cancer research;
There's about 150 researchers right now, going into their labs, looking for better ways to diagnose and treat cancer
Cancer research is a term that is bandied about a lot but what does research actually do? To put it into context: 30 years ago, only 3 out of 10 people survived cancer. Today, in 2019, that has doubled to 6 out of 10 people surviving cancer. That’s what Dare to Care contributes towards - saving lives.
In the next 3 minutes someone is gonna hear those horrible words "you have cancer" and their life just changes there and then, and you're asked to bring someone with you for that horrible visit and that other person, God...their life changes as well
DONATE NOW: Log onto www.cancer.ie/dance and donate online now – give what you can - or Text ‘DARE’ to 50300 to donate €4
Check out Mark's chat in full by pressing the play button on screen.
