CUH at 40: 'You need to know you’re in good hands. I was'
Cork University Hospital is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, having first opened on November 30, 1978.
The hospital began life as the Cork Regional Hospital and has since gone on to become Ireland's largest university teaching hospital and the only Level 1 Trauma centre in the country.
Staffed by over 4,000 people, the CUH has seen many thousands more come through the hospital's doors in the last 40 years.
As part of the Irish Examiner's anniversary coverage, readers have been sharing their memories of the CUH.
Fiona Bell commented on the quality of staff who cared for her when she had to go to the hospital on a visit to Ireland.
I was home to spend the summer with family and friends and had a slight hiccup at 6 months pregnant. I went to my local GP and she sent me to CUH maternity hospital. They were absolutely brilliant!
Apart from the routine tests, which, when it boils down to it is just machines doing their job, the doctors, nurses and administrative staff were, apart from being really professional and thorough, were just really nice and assuring, which sometimes, is a lot more important than the results you read in a test!
Linda Jordan recalls being a patient there in 1982 when she an 11-year-old.
"I was taken into what was then the Regional Hospital because of an abscess on my left cheek that had swollen to the size of a golf ball and felt like one too.
"My left leg had stopped moving and we discovered that poison from the abscess had gone down through my spine. I was in the children’s ward for 3 1/2 weeks, a few of those were wheelchair bound.
The staff were incredible, well the nurses were. I have no recollection of the doctors but the nurses were amazing.
When a place becomes your home away from home like that for whatever length of time, you need to know you’re in good hands. I was.
Catherine Roche remembered her mother working at the hospital at the time Air India crash in 1985.
"She remembers relatives coming to try and identify and bring home their loved ones," said Ms Roche.
She says it was one of the "saddest times in the hospital" but it highlighted the vital role it played.
329 victims lost their lives following an act of terrorism in which an Air India jet en route from Canada was blown up over the Cork coast.
Eddie Cassidy reported how the CUH, then the Cork Regional Hospital, became a nerve centre "for a massive recovery operation of bodies and wreckage".
Have you got a personal memory of how the hospital and their staff made an impact on your life to share? Add your submission here.
