Help Ray fundraise for a new hospice bedroom

Ray Donnelly, our friend and co-worker, was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic colon cancer in March 2018.  Ray comes from a large Northern Irish family with 3 sisters and 2 brothers and married Pam, his girlfriend (and now caretaker) of 17 years in September that year in Copenhagen.  You may know Ray better by his online alias, mingwandroid, which you’ll find sprinkled around hundreds of open source projects  that Ray has contributed to.  As a self-described “recovering games programmer who loves tinkering with compilers, build systems, and all things open source,” Ray’s contributions are multitudinous and impactful.  From MSYS2 to Anaconda, Ray has pushed back the frontier of software, helping to unify capabilities across platforms and provide the very latest functionality, speed, and security.

Ray along with friends and colleagues at Anaconda, inc. successfully crowdfunded for an operation in Houston, TX to extend his life, when unfortunately, his doctors in Manchester believed operating on Ray’s tumors would be too risky to attempt.  The link to his story and fundraising can be found here:  https://uk.gofundme.com/f/arku72-help-ray-fight-cancer

The operation was successful; however, Ray is currently an inpatient at St Ann’s Hospice in Manchester, being supported for pain relief.  But once again he is embarking on some fundraising, this time on behalf of the Hospice …

St Ann’s care for patients and families from diagnosis of a life-limiting illness, through treatment, and beyond. Providing inpatient and outpatient services and support to people in the place they call home. The support means different things to different people. Some people come for care at the end of their life, others for help managing their symptoms. The hospice provides exceptional care for the patients and families of Greater Manchester and will continue to provide this into the future too.

However, as a former children’s home, the St Ann’s Hospice building at Heald Green was already more than 100 years old when converted into a hospice in 1971. The building’s age and structure are starting to create limitations on their ability to evolve to meet the growing and changing needs of the people they serve. Crucially, the current layout of the building and facilities makes achieving their vision of world class care an increasing challenge.

The multi-bedded bays in the inpatient unit can compromise privacy and dignity for patients, and also restrict the number of patients we can admit with complex illnesses needing specialist equipment such as oxygen therapy, hoists and electric wheel chairs. There is a lack of social spaces for patients to be with their families and for many there is no direct access to the gardens.

St Ann’s is therefore committed to building a new hospice, which will be a model of future hospice care; this will change as the needs of patients change, and the hospice will be equipped for these changes to always be at the forefront of innovative care.

Vitally, the new hospice will feature a bright, modern, spacious inpatient unit with 21 individual en-suite bedrooms and two three-bed bays, all featuring comfortable furnishings and access to private outdoor terraces.  Patients will have privacy to spend vital moments with their loved ones, to say what they need to say in a private space. En-suite facilities will increase patient dignity for personal care.  This will enable more patients to access care and support sooner and more efficiently. Read more here: https://www.sah.org.uk/about-us/our-plans-for-a-new-hospice-2/

Ray is able to appreciate the current care facility first hand, and although he confirms that this is absolutely world class, he fully understand the issues that not having a private room can bring, he has therefore committed to fundraising to fund an en-suite bedroom for the new hospice,  as he says in his own words ‘It is an absolute pleasure to try to leave some little legacy that will help others. Trust me!

Since he has given so much to the Anaconda community and the broader open source community - we want to give others the opportunity to help him and others as well.  In recognition of Ray’s vast contributions to our community, and in the hopes of helping others beat cancer, please join us in contributing to a place where Ray holds close to his heart.  Contributions here will be matched 1:1 up to $10,000 by Anaconda, Inc.  In spite of his remarkable ability and contributions, Ray is very humble, hardworking and affable.  Despite his daunting condition, he remains upbeat and incredibly dedicated to continuing his work and open-source contributions.