Over €45,000 raised in four days for life saving treatment for 3-year-old

An online fundraising campaign for a potentially life-saving treatment for a little girl with a severe form of epilepsy has raised over €45,000 in four days.

Three year old Clodagh, whose parents Matthew and Sinead are originally from Killare and Mullingar, has Dravet Syndrome and suffers multiple seizures every day.

On June 17, she was admitted to hospital after being resuscitated twice at home by her relatives. It was the second time in a matter of weeks that Clodagh had suffered respiratory and cardiac arrest.

A new form of treatment, Fenfluramine, has been proven to significantly reduce both the frequency and severity of the seizures experienced by children with Dravet Syndrome, however, it costs approximately €10,000 a month.

Clodagh's family are currently awaiting funding approval from the HSE. In the interim her aunt Ann-Marie Conboy and Carl Murphy set up a GoFundMe page at the weekend to raise money to fund the potentially life-saving treatment while her family waits for the funding to come through.

They set a target of €30,000, which would be enough to cover three months of treatment over the summer; four days into the fundraising campaign people have already donated over €45,000.

In a post on the crowdfunding website, Carl and Ann-Marie thanked people for their donations.

“Your generosity and kindness is incredible, we can now support Clodagh with an additional month of medication if HSE approval is delayed. We are all deeply moved.”