Ballyroan father Anthony Knowles has become no stranger to television appearances over recent months.
From the extremely well-received documentary ‘The Town’, to Winning Streak – Anthony has featured on many TV screens over the past few weeks, and recently appeared on Virgin Media One’s ‘The Sunday Show’ to discuss medicinal cannabis.
Anthony and his partner Rose Maher featured heavily alongside their daughter Mary-Claire on the ‘The Town’ documentary, which highlighted the lives of different people living in and around Portlaoise.
Two year old Mary-Claire captured the hearts of the nation over the three week period as her struggles with Dravet’s Syndrome were documented.
Dravet’s Syndrome is characterised by prolonged seizures, sometimes causing developmental delays and can cause an increased risk of sudden unexplained death in epilepsy.
Mary-Claire’s life threatening illness has caused her to suffer from over 60 seizures in her short life so far.
No family deserved to see their name being called out on Winning Streak more when Anthony was called up for the popular game show last month.
He won big and ended up spinning the Wheel and came away with a car worth €25,000 and €32,000 in cash.
Anthony and Rose have been using their platform to raise awareness and funds for Mary-Claire’s condition – and state their views that medicinal cannabis should be used to treat their child.
Last week he appeared on the One Show on Virgin Media One to state why he believes his daughter should have access to medicinal cannabis.
Anthony says that doctors have told him that medicinal cannabis is the best way to treat Mary Claire’s condition – but that is illegal to use in Ireland.
“I want to see Mary-Claire on medicinal cannabis. We’ve done our research on medicinal cannabis. The doctors in Ireland have told us Mary-Claire needs medicinal cannabis.
“We’ve also traveled abroad to Holland twice, done our research over there and met doctors that highly recommend this treatment from America.
“But when you get back home, they don’t want to know about this,” stated the father of three.
“They tell you there’s not enough research done, they’re doing research. There are 12 licences granted in Ireland for medicinal cannabis, the majority of them are for Dravet’s Syndrome.
“All of those children have improved since they started medicinal cannabis.”
Anthony says that he believes it’s up to the Minister for Health Simon Harris to give the all-clear on medicinal cannabis treatment, as doctors are afraid to prescribe cannabis without this.
“It’s up to Simon Harris at the end of the day, I think. I think the doctors are afraid of the responsibility they’d have to have to prescribe it to Mary-Claire.
“The parents whose children are getting medicinal cannabis, the 12 who have been granted licences, they’re not allowed to tell me who their doctors and neurologists are.
They’ve told me that if they tell me or share this information they’ll lose their licence.”
You can view the entire interview with Anthony here.
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