Who'll clean up when you can't?

For the past year, the owners of a cleaning company have offered a free service to women suffering from cancer

THE LAST thing a woman dealing with the trauma of a cancer diagnosis or chemotherapy should have to worry about is who is going to clean the toilet.

That’s the theory behind Dermot McGuckin’s award-winning initiative: a free service designed to remove the drudgery for women returning home after treatment or surgery.

McGuckin runs a Dublin-based residential cleaning service with his wife Maud, called Maud’s Merry Maids. He also has first-hand knowledge of how cancer can play havoc with family life, having lost his own mother to the disease when he was 10.

More than a year ago, a woman rang Maud’s Merry Maids to inquire about the cost of having the cleaners in. Sadly she explained that as she was undergoing chemotherapy, funds were low and she could not afford it. “She put the phone down, we had no number for her and couldn’t contact her again to offer help,” says McGuckin.

Memories of how he and his brother and father battled to keep the house in order while his own mother was in and out of St Luke’s Hospital prompted him to offer a free cleaning service for women coping with cancer. So, in November 2009 the Bellarose Foundation was born, named after Dermot’s mother, Ann Bella McGuckin.

“We have provided the service for about 100 women so far – usually for a period of six to eight weeks,” says McGuckin, who is trying to encourage other domestic cleaning companies around the country to follow suit.

The Bellarose Foundation recently received a grant of €5,000 from Dublin Bus under its community support programme to help expand the service. Its founders plan to target every community in Dublin, with the help of referrals from hospitals and agencies such as the Irish Cancer Society, in a bid to make life easier for women recovering from the disease.

“Cleaning toilets and cooker tops should be the least of your worries when undergoing treatment for cancer,” says McGuckin. “One of the most upsetting things about cancer is that people often have huge financial worries – and this is not something everyone realises.”

Colleague Laura Bowe says that women who take great pride in their homes are often distressed when things get out of hand because they just don’t have the energy to face the ironing or cleaning.

“A lot of well-meaning people just add to the stress by dropping in to see them, not realising how embarrassed they are that the house is not tidy. The worry of this gets many women down.”

Janette Byrne of Patients Together says the service should be expanded not just all over the country but to people suffering from a range of long-term illnesses. “Speaking as someone who has been through cancer twice, I can tell you that there are times when everything falls apart. To have someone step in like this when you don’t have the energy to even wash a cup is a truly fantastic thing, and a service I would love to see available all over the country.”

Byrne says that the home is so tied up with people’s sense of identity and self-worth that it is often very distressing when things get out of control. “The people behind this were inspired and I would love to see the service available for the many sick people around the country who feel they can’t cope,” she says.

bellarosefoundation.ie