The remarkable journey made by Donegal cancer patients who travel to Galway for treatment is to be subject of a fascinating television documentary to be shown on TG4 next Wednesday night, April 19.
Twice a week cancer patients from Donegal board a bus and travel the five hours and 200 kilometres to receive cancer treatment in University College Hospital Galway.
When in Galway they take residence in Cancer Care West’s Inis Aoibhinn for the week, a haven away from the hospital where people help each other and rejuvenate as a group.
Entitled Turas na hAilse – The Cancer Journey, the documentary follows them as they make this journey together, exhibiting resilience, generosity, and spirit under difficult but unifying circumstances.
One of the people featured in the programme who use the facilities of Inis Aoibhinn is James McConn.
James McConn a farmer from Three Trees, Quigley’s Point, had to travel 290km to Galway to receive radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer.
At 72 years of age, James had to wake at 4am on a Monday morning, make his own way on the 45km trip to Letterkenny, and board the ‘Good and New Cancer Bus’ to Inis Aoibhinn in Galway where he would take residence whilst receiving radiotherapy.
On Friday, James returns to Donegal on the Good and New Cancer Bus, embarking on another 290km journey, repeating this for seven weeks in total in order to receive the treatment he needed.
The Good and New Cancer Bus was founded by Eamonn McDevitt.
“All our people are volunteers. We have three bus drivers, Fergus Cleary, Plunkett Martin and myself,” he said.
“Every penny comes from ordinary people doing ordinary things and without those people with the greatest will in the world with the drivers and the buses we couldn’t do it without those people doing that. This service is run on a voluntary basis.
Bus driver Fergus Cleary talks about getting up at 4.50am every Friday so he can be in Galway to collect the patients shortly after 8am to bring them back home to Donegal for the weekend.
He does this to make the difference to the passengers who appreciate it.
Galway-based Hawkeye Films and Phantom Limb Productions combined forces for this film to capture the reality of cancer patients in the Northwest of Ireland.
“It takes the pressure off everybody, your family and everything. It’s a big asset for the Donegal people to have this bus,” said Nuala Boyle
“Its such a whirlwind, if you knew what was ahead you’d run a mile if you could, but you just get through it,” said Ann McLoughlin
The documentary will air on TG4 next Wednesday, April 19 at 8.30pm.
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