2009

ROTARIANS PROVIDE A SPECIALIST CARER FOR 10 YEARS-OLD ISAAC

Sale Rotary Club is giving access to world-class medical experts for the family of a 10 year-old boy with a rare genetic disease.

For local Rotarians are funding the cost of his professional one-to-one care during this month's conference for the Society for Mucopolysaccharide Diseases.

Isaac Turner, of Ashton on Mersey, has Hurler's disease - which has given him profound deafness, sight, mobility, heart and breathing problems. On top of the 29 operations he has been through, including two bone marrow transplants and major spinal surgery, he contracted meningitis last year and was in a coma during his five-week hospital stay.

So specialist care is essential if his parents, Adam and Lou Turner, are to be updated on the latest medical developments at the society's two-day conference in Northampton.

"Without this support from Rotary," says Lou, "we would miss out on invaluable advice from international experts and the opportunity to meet and exchange information with other families in similar situations.

"Isaac would also miss the chance of meeting other children and knowing he's not alone. There's no cure for him but the MPS Society helps everyone involved to understand and come to terms with the conditions they have."

The Society for Mucopolysaccharide Diseases is a voluntary UK support group that represents over 1,200 children and adults suffering from a group of illnesses, as well as their families, carers and professionals.

"But few people are likely to be aware of it unless they know somebody with one of the conditions," says Sale Rotary Club president John Pilling. "Lack of awareness, however, and the shortage of funding that often brings, should not deny affected families the medical and mutual support that conferences like this provide.