CYSTIC FIBROSIS campaigner Anita Slowey has died. She had been receiving treatment at St Vincent’s hospital, Dublin, when she died on Monday evening.
Ms Slowey (24), from Clones, Co Monaghan, had campaigned with others for a special unit in St Vincent’s hospital which would give people with cystic fibrosis their own rooms, to reduce their exposure to infection from other patients.
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease which damages many organs but primarily the lungs and digestive system. Cross-infection poses a major risk to people with the disease and they have long campaigned to be treated in separate rooms in hospital to reduce the risk.
Ms Slowey's sister Catherine and aunt Ann Adamson paid tribute to her on RTÉ Radio's Livelineshow yesterday. Her sister said she had made the most of her short life.
“She enjoyed herself as much as she could and she lived as normal a life as she could . . . she definitely had no regrets.” Her aunt said her “get up and go” attitude was remarkable and she had travelled the world despite the illness.
“Even a normal person with no sickness wouldn’t have the same drive as her. She was a true fighter.”
Ms Slowey first came to public notice when she contacted Livelinethree years ago on the eve of her 21st birthday, explaining that 21 years was the average life expectancy of a woman with cystic fibrosis and her condition was expected to deteriorate.
In an e-mail to the show last October, she said she had spent 10 months of the previous two years in St Vincent’s hospital, fighting endless infections. Most of that time was spent in six-bed wards.
Ms Slowey said her father had died in July and “the last words he heard on this earth was my voice telling him that I would never give up”.
Part of that e-mail was read out in the Dáil last October by Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan, who was told by Minister of State John Moloney that the promised cystic fibrosis unit with single rooms would be completed in early 2012.
Ms Slowey had recently become engaged to Dominic Mallinson. Her funeral will take place today after 11am requiem Mass at the Sacred Heart Church in Clones.
