Campaign launched to help Berry family

Friends and family have rallied around to help ease the financial burden on a 48-year-old Mount Temple father-of-five who is currently on the waiting list for a heart transplant.

Joe Berry was placed on the heart transplant list after he received the devastating diagnosis of extreme heart failure last month and learned that his functioning heart rate is just 15% of what it should be.

Joe has five children, ranging in age from 22 years to just nine, and is now unable to look after them and a GoFundMe campaign has been set up by his best friend, Tom Fallon, in an effort to help the family and to ensure he receives the on-going medical care he needs.

Joe’s eldest daughter, Lauren, has now taken charge of the day-to-day running of the family home in Tullaghshanlin along with her 19-year-old sister, Olivia.

Lauren is studying social care in college and working part-time in St Hilda’s Services, and Olivia has a full-time job.

Speaking to the Westmeath Independent this week, Lauren said it was "such a shock" for her family to absorb the fact that their father’s heart was failing when he was admitted to the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore on January 25 last. "He was going to bed and suddenly he was unable to breathe, and when he went into hospital they told him that if he hadn’t gone in when he did he would not be alive due to extreme heart failure," said his eldest daughter.

Lauren admitted that while she and her siblings, two sisters and two brothers, have had "many days of upset and have had our little cries" since their father’s devastating diagnosis, she said the family is "very close-knit and we are always there for each other."

Lauren says her father is "extremely weak" at the moment and his medical team is prescribing various medications in the hope that it can increase his heart function to around 30% to 40%. "It is not looking great, so we will have to wait and see if that works in the short term," she said.

Describing her Dad as "always being there" for herself and her siblings as well as being very close to his 80-year old mother, Christina who lives in Moate, Lauren Berry said he "means to the world to us, and we are his world" and she added that he remains "hopeful and optimistic" that he will get a heart transplant.

Tom Fallon, who set up the GoFundMe page, described Joe Berry as being very well known in his local community for his "caring, giving, selfless ways" and said his whole world came "crashing down" last month when he was told he would need a new heart.

The GoFundMe campaign – called Joe Berry needs our help - which was set up on February 11, has already its target of €20,000, but Tom says the Berry family will need “on-going financial support” and he is hoping that the target of €20,000 can be exceeded.

Tom Fallon explained that Joe Berry, also cares for his nine-year old son, who is autistic, and has “a tough battle ahead” to be able to “look after his children on top of staying stable enough to see tomorrow.”

Tom says “Joe needs our help” and all he wants most in the world “is to see his family grow up” and to be able to provide for them in every way. “Watching him struggle every day has been one of the hardest things to see, he deserves the world and more.”

He has also issued an impassioned plea as part of the GoFundMe campaign for Joe Berry for people to consider becoming an organ donor. “You could change someone’s world forever when you are gone, more than you could ever know” he said.

To donate to the fundraising campaign for Joe Berry please go to the GoFundMe page and type in: Joe Berry needs our help.