REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE DUBLIN NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE DUBLIN NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE MATER MISERICORDIAE HOSPITAL
I am delighted to be here with you today to officially open the Dublin Neurological Institute, the first of its kind in Ireland. I want to thank Declan McCourt, Chairman of the Board of the Mater Foundation, for the kind invitation to officially open this magnificent Institute. I welcome each of you to this very special celebration and in particular welcome the international guests, Professors from Neurological Institutes in New York and Montreal. We gather to mark the end of a building project and the beginning of a new era in Neurology in Ireland.
I know it has been a long hard journey since 2002 when the Sisters of Mercy handed this building over to the Department of Neurology. While it was great to get a building which could in time serve as a centre of excellence for clinical care and research, you could probably have done without the added gift of the tree which was at that time growing up through the building. That such a sorely dilapidated building has been transformed into the magnificent restored Georgian edifice we see around us is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of many people.
I would like to commend in particular the immense efforts of Professor Tim Lynch, who returned from the United States with a vision for a world class neurological service here in Ireland. I would also like to commend the Mater Foundation which has been instrumental in providing financial and moral support for the project. Many people worked with a heart and a half to bring about this day and for them it really is a very proud day for not only have you transcended the huge challenges presented by the renovation but now Ireland, for the first time, has an important new resource for the treatment and care of those with neurological conditions. Thanks to you this Institute is set fair to be a leading provider of neurological care in Ireland.
This perfect marriage of classical Georgian architecture and first class contemporary facilities provides a comfortable and reassuring ambience for patients and their families and a highly integrated context for clinical care and research.
Neurological problems are considerably more commonplace than many of us imagine and the names of the more commonly known conditions undoubtedly strike fear in most of us lay people. Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Acute Stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, Motor Neurone disease, spinal injury - these are not words we want to have come into our lives and yet for many people they are a part of their everyday lived reality and most of us know someone in our circle of family or friends who is living with such a condition. We have some idea of the very complex problems faced by patients, their carers and their families and so we know that any improvement in services is going to have repercussions throughout the country. The advent of this Institute sets a radical fresh new agenda in terms of treatment, care and research and a menu of new and improved service options from nurse-led and rapid access clinics, which will incidentally take some pressure off A and E, to a drop-in centre for the support of patients, their families and carers, to a culture of patient management rather than episode management.
This synthesis of best international practice initiatives puts neurological care in Ireland right up with the best in the world. No-one gets into that league or reaches that level in one go or by dint of settling for second best. That this Institute represents and offers the very best that is available in the field of neurology is thanks to all those who insist on the best and who work relentlessly to achieve it. Even as they enjoy this day of celebration they know that tomorrow this thing called excellence requires an insatiable curiosity and an at times unreasonable determination, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw - he once said ‘the reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to all those unreasonable men and women who championed this Institute. Many are here today - some are volunteers or benefactors others staff and patients and their families. Your ideas and your advocacy worked through in partnership and with a focus on the future, have brought a great concept to life and in the fight against neurological illness you have helped to redraw the battle lines.
It gives me great pleasure to officially open the Dublin Neurological Institute and I wish the management and staff of the Institute every success in your work in the future.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.