Sickle cell disease seminar in Blakestown

One of the less well-publicised aspects of the growth of Ireland’s multi-cultural population has been the issue of some new conditions and illnesses for the medical services to deal with. One of these is the so-called sickle cell disease, an inherited condition that is most common among people whose ancestors come from Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean basin and India.

The disease is in fact an inherited blood disorder that affects red blood cells. People with sickle cell disease have red blood cells that contain mostly hemoglobin* S, an abnormal type of hemoglobin. Sometimes these red blood cells become sickle-shaped (crescent shaped) and have difficulty passing through small blood vessels. When the sickle-shaped cells block small blood vessels, less blood can reach that part of the body. Tissue that does not receive a normal blood flow eventually becomes damaged. This is what causes the complications of sickle cell disease.

Blakestown Community Development Project (CDP) recently ran a seminar and workshop on the subject in the local resource centre on Blakestown way. Organised by Jean Clifford and Paula Doyle, the seminar was attended by local teachers, health workers and crèche workers from the area.

“The CDP supports the Intercultural women’s group that meets in the centre every Friday morning,” said Jean. “As part of the educational courses and training that the group does, they decided to work with the CDP to set up an information/awareness morning to give an overview of what sickle cell sickness is.”

Two speakers attended the morning to provide information on dealing with the problem – nurse Rowena Geoghegan from Our Lady’s Hospital for sick children and Bernie Beatley from the Clondalkin Women’s Network who have also done some promotional work in this area.

According to Rowena, “there is an increasing awareness of the condition in Ireland and while we don’t have accurate numbers on it as yet it does continue to increase. It is a chronic life threatening disease and it is important that we increase people’s awareness of the condition.”

Rowena stressed that the condition is not contagious and is a genetic one passed from parent to child. “At present we are working in Crumlin with children who have the condition, but as yet there is no such service for adults. The important thing is providing early diagnosis and screening,” she said.

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