REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A GALA DINNER FOR THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ROTUNDA HOSPITAL
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A GALA DINNER TO CELEBRATE THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ROTUNDA HOSPITAL AT PARNELL SQUARE
Good evening, and thank you very much for your warm welcome. I am delighted to be here to celebrate with you the Rotunda’s extraordinary longevity, and indeed to be celebrating the occasion on precisely the 250th anniversary of the Rotunda’s opening. If your due dates here for births are half as precise, I’m impressed! I’d like to say a particular word of thanks, through the Master, to the Board of Governors for their generous invitation to participate in what is a highly significant anniversary celebration and in such a marvellous setting.
That we should be celebrating the foundation of a maternity hospital—indeed, the first hospital in Europe to be devoted to maternity care—in Advent, the period leading up to the Nativity, is particularly poignant. The Advent story, of a heavily pregnant woman searching in vain for somewhere safe and warm to give birth to her child, is one which resonates throughout the world.
Bartholomew Mosse was not, as far as I know, motivated in particular by the Christmas story, but his horror at the conditions to which pregnant mothers in Dublin were subjected in 1745, when the so-called Lying-in Hospital - the Rotunda’s precursor - first opened its doors is well recorded. Mosse, one of that strange species with the unhappy title of apprentice barber-surgeon, turned out to be not in the least bit barbarous but quite the reverse: a man of profound compassion and even better still a man who had the determination to change things. He turned out to have a gift for fundraising: so pretty much the very model of a modern hospital Chief Executive! For in addition to his medical work, Mosse began running lotteries, staging concerts and productions in the theatre, including a number of Handel’s oratorios.
The lotteries led to two colourful events, the buying of the site on which the Rotunda now stands and Mosse’s imprisonment over questions relating to some of the attendant financing. We will stick to celebrating the former!
The Hospital which Mosse founded has of course moved with the times while staying true to its core mission to women and babies. The striking Cassels building, a great Dublin landmark, speaks of a long history and it holds tens of thousands of stories, of lives begun, of huge joy and relief, of some sadness and grief and of a lot of caring support whatever the circumstances. The Rotunda was from its own birth something of a creative genius, pioneering smaller wards over the large wards and so greatly lessening the impact of hospital epidemics. Later it became the first to offer education and training programmes for midwives in Ireland. Today we see that spirit of innovation in the creation of the first Advanced Nurse Practitioners in neo-natal care and in the ongoing development of the first Higher Diploma in Nursing Forensic Examination of Sexual Assault in Ireland or Britain. That is the Rotunda, like its founder, restless always to do things better.
Some 8,000 births are scheduled to take place here this year. That is a lot of mothers, babies, fathers and family to be catered for. It is also a lot of personalities and problems to be navigated along with an increasingly wide variety of cultures, belief systems and languages. The impact of your care on each one of those people leaves a lasting legacy and as each generation of staff here adds its chapter to the long heritage, each is as much a sacred steward of the past as a custodian of the present. This place has a noble name, a respected and much loved name, earned over many, many long generations by men and women now long gone who invested their lives’ work here.
Today a new generation is bringing its energy and imagination to bear on the life of the Rotunda. They are able to do things today that were unheard of even a short few years ago. Mothers and babies have never been safer. Times have never been better yet it still matters that in the Rotunda people look at the world through the compassionate and curious eyes of Bartholomew Mosse. The question still has to be, even in these very changed times, how do we improve our services, how do we do things better tomorrow than today. It is that striving always to do your best and to do it for the benefit of others that stirs our pride and our respect. It also demands our thanks. I don’t know how many people leave without ever saying thank you. I imagine the numbers are small for there is a unique intimacy in a maternity hospital between patients and staff that comes from the privilege of being part of such an unequalled moment in our lives. People remember you throughout their lives and though you may not always sense it, throughout our community we know how much we owe you and how grateful we are to you.
To all who continue to be or have been, the hands, heart and brains of the Rotunda, thank you for making this your passion, your profession and to each of you I wish a wonderful and deserved celebration, continued success and fulfilment in all you do and a very happy Christmas.