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21st Dec 2017

CF campaigner Orla Tinsley gets go-ahead for double lung transplant

'Please send love, prayers and best wishes'.

Conor Heneghan

Fantastic news.

Irish Cystic Fibrosis campaigner Orla Tinsley has revealed that she has got the go-ahead for a double lung transplant.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Tinsley tweeted to say: “This morning we got a call but I wanted to wait. Well, here it is, Lucky Number7. I’m not afraid..Please send love, prayers and best wishes. Double lung transplant is a go! Love love love  #BEATCF”

Tinsley, a Kildare native living in New York, posted on social media earlier this week to say that she was “on life support fighting intensely” and praised the efforts of staff at New York Presbyterian Hospital while posting a picture of her oxygen mask on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc4wWynHsYm/?taken-by=orla_tinsley

Tinsley had previously received six calls about a potential double lung transplant, but none of the potential donors were a suitable match; her tweet prompted an outpouring of good wishes when she posted it early on Thursday morning.

Tinsley has actively campaigned for better treatment for people with Cystic Fibrosis – a condition that affects 1,200 people in Ireland – for years and has written about it in the Irish Times since 2005.

Tinsley’s activism helped draw attention to the issue at national level in Ireland and was a factor in the opening of a dedicated Cystic Fibrosis unit at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin in 2012.