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THE PREGNANT MOTHER of a four-year-old boy who was diagnosed with cancer says she will borrow €10,000 in order to have umbilical stem cells harvested which could potentially save his life.
Noleen Kane, whose son Mannix is in remission after being diagnosed with rare clear cell sarcoma last year, says that she was told when she was 20 weeks pregnant that the procedure could take place at Holles Street.
She engaged the services of a private company to provide the necessary equipment and to take responsibility for storing the stem cells retrieved from the cord blood.
Kane says her son’s consultant at Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin supported her wishes to bank her unborn baby’s stem cells because there was a high risk of Mannix relapsing. However, she says that three weeks ago she was told by Holles Street that she must contact the Irish Blood Transfusion Service with regard to the matter.
She is now having to consider having a private birth in Mount Carmel Hospital where the procedure can be carried out.
Mirenda O’Donovan, spokesperson for the IBTS has told TheJournal.ie that the service does not make decisions about when the procedure should take place. She said that when the Bone Marrow Transplant Team at Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin makes a formal request for umbilical cord blood to be collected, the service puts the arrangements in place for a team at the relevant maternity unit to be trained in the procedure, and that the IBTS then takes on the responsibility of storing the stem cells.
With regard to Noleen Kane the IBTS said:
In this instance no such formal request was made to the IBTS.
Martina Keoghan, Noleen Kane’s aunt told TheJournal.ie that the family cannot understand the confusion and that her niece is devastated. She said that engaging the services of a private company to store the stem cells in addition to paying for a private birth could cost in the region of €10,000, and that the family will borrow the money if necessary.
Noleen Kane, who is now 38 weeks pregnant, says she is at her wits end and that she has been “back and forth between Holles Street and Crumlin trying to get all of this sorted but to no avail”:
To think that my little boy who has fought so hard to stay alive throughout all of his treatment may one day need these stem cells and this opportunity to bank the cells will just be thrown away.
Holles Street has not returned a request for a comment on the matter this afternoon, while the HSE told TheJournal.ie that it was a policy matter for the Department of Health to comment on. A spokesperson for the Department of Health has told TheJournal.ie that it is being looked into.
In its Directory of Service Holles Street states that there is “insufficient scientific research to support the practice of taking routine cord blood for stem cell retrieval considering the implications involved in undertaking the actual procedure”.
It states that it, along with the Coombe Women’s Hospital and the Rotunda Hospital, does not support requests from the patients to take cord blood for stem retrieval unless it has been requested by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service for a particular medical condition.
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If you had switched on the location services you could find that brick in a jiffy. Then again I suppose anyone could track the phone location, hack into it, turn on the camera, record everything. Follow you on Facebook, take your credit card details and all your stored passwords and PIN’s. There’s a lot to be said for the brick.
*cough* HTC
That’s the exact same reason I won’t buy a laptop. I remember the old typewriters, weighed as much as a small car, and you had to practically JUMP on the keys to get them to work…
Was playing with a typewriter over weekend – what a lovely feeling! The sound must have driven the clerks demented though!
In saying that, it would lull you into a nice snooze. Or is that just me on a Monday morning?!
I’d say you’d have super-powerful fingers after a few week using one!
*sigh*
I really enjoy Nick’s columns, but why do I get the uncomfortable feeling that we’re now descending into ‘click-bait’ territory? Please don’t let this thread be another litany of ‘my one is better than yours’…
Wait for it…….fanboys are lining up.
Nick, who gives a curse. I spent 2k punts plus Vat on one of those. They were great for someone on the move but I can understand that their use in a prison was limited
I remember seeing one of those bricks, late 80′s I think. It was the size of a small car but boy did it look cool. Can technology keep going at such a rampant pace into the future? It’s actually quite scary to imagine what tech will be in our homes in 25 yrs from now.
Never mind your home, what will be in your body in 25 years.
Why does the journal give this guy so much time?
I think he writes good articles!
I think he writes good articles!!
Nick writes very good articles, and most importantly, they’re entertaining, the views speak for themselves
As an ex con he has to be extended the olive branch that all other minority groups receive on this website. Never forget how many lives this man ruined.
Good man Tom. Olive branch, lives ruined, so much irony in one statment.
We’re lucky to have a commentator who knows the business inside and out.
I’ll agree this article is a bit below par though.
Nope, he writes whimsical sentimental claptrap.
Dead right. its bloody huge so is Galaxy S3, light and flimsy looking. Galaxy Note is worse. I have a Sony Ericsson, it a perfect size and does the exact same thing as the Top High Range Smartphones.. ?660 for new IPhone 5 on pay as you go. I can buy a new laptop and a new midrange android smartphone for the same price. Ridiculous!!!
Not sure I understand the point of this article. Apart from reviling us with tales of Nicks halcyon days and his distain for new technology? The ‘I used to ‘ave a brick phone’ story is an old one, as is the tired theme of ‘I’m out of touch, with technology and I love telling everyone about it’. I’m not sure how any of this qualifies nick to discuss the release of the iPhone 5? I’m not a fanboy and find apples constant incremental releases kind of boring.. But if your going to discuss something like privacy and the mobile phones affect on it try picking a tech journalist to write it??? I’m kind of surprised at the journals choice of coverage on this, article reads like a Kevin Meyers asshat moment.
Can someone please explain to me what a “Kevin Meyers asshat moment” looks like?.
A thinly veiled advertisement for the latest iphone. And possibly for the building suppliers too :)
So somebody has gotten old and doesn’t embrace technology shocker!
So what, I am sure people thought mobile phone back in the day was not needed. It was really cumbersome, you had to carry a spare battery too.
Modern smart phone is light weight and versatile. Happy to have one and as a business expense it is cheaper to me.
I need to use one now.
Nick, how about putting your genius to writing about the virtues of a fountain pen…. I’ll help!
Eee still don’t really know why are you not buying that phone even after reading this article. Is it because of money you will spend on it? Or because there is no point because soon enough there will be a new one? Or because you will be too easy to reach? Or from a totally different reason that you have not wrote about?
Just asking.
People who keep upgrading (whatever that may be phone,pc,laptop,tv cars etc) really dont care about the environment at the end of the day. Because there old one gets thrown in the dump.. Bigger and bigger dumps across the world. In a resourced based economy items would be built to last not to make a yearly profit margin.
Time for change and the change is coming. Zeitgeist.com
Hey Nick you can’t afford one you owe to much money…
have your say