'We decided to go together': Cork friends on travelling to Belfast for joint replacements

Cork women Nora Burke and Martina O’Riordan have known each other for 60 years, so it was apt that they were in hospital together — one for a knee replacement, the other for a hip replacement

Fri, 08 May, 2026 - 02:00

Helen O’Callaghan

LIFELONG friends Martina O’Riordan, 75, and Nora Burke, 73, first met when O’Riordan’s parents bought a shop five doors up from Burke’s home on Macroom’s Main St in the 1960s.

“We hit it off straightaway,” says Burke, a former post-office worker. “Martina’s family had just come from England; it was a big change for her to come to a small town like Macroom.”

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O’Riordan recalls Nora calling into the shop for sweets. “We got talking. She was dying to know about England. We were friends from then on.”

Burke remembers coming home from her Dublin-based job at weekends and heading off with O’Riordan to a dance at the Montrose or the Castle Ballroom. “No matter where I was going, Martina was going.”

“We were at each other’s weddings,” says O’Riordan, while Burke says, “There are a lot of things I know about Martina, and a lot she knows about me, that nobody else knows. You could tell Martina anything and know it’s not going to be repeated.”

Nora Burke (left) and Martina O’Riordan (right) who travelled together for treatment at Kingsbridge Private Hospital and are encouraging others not to suffer in silence, sharing how their experience has helped them regain their independence and quality of life. Photo: Gerard McCarthy

Dances, weddings, and secrets aside, the two friends could never have guessed, back when they were teens, that, six decades on, they would share a health journey together to a hospital in Belfast.

O’Riordan’s knee pain started two years ago. “First, it was a niggle, but it gradually got worse. My knee would give underneath me — I got a couple of falls — I’d be so afraid coming downstairs. It took over my life. I found it hard to drive, and I couldn’t walk far, because I wouldn’t be able to come back.”

At the same time, Burke was “in agony” with pain in her left hip. “I was limping. An MRI showed arthritis. I was on crutches. Even going to the shops was difficult; I’d have to lean on a trolley just to get around and put my crutches into it.”

Like O’Riordan, Burke went on a waiting list to see a consultant.

The breakthrough for both women came when Burke unexpectedly ran into a neighbour at her GP’s, while getting her covid vaccine in April 2025. “My neighbour, Mary, was on crutches. I said, ‘Did you have an accident?’ She said no, that she’d had her hips done the previous Tuesday. I said, ‘Oh my God! And you’re out walking like that! Where did you get it done?’

Nora Burke: 'I’ve total freedom now. I can walk without any aids. It’s a completely different life.' Photo: Gerard McCarthy

“And she said she’d gone to Belfast; that she couldn’t have waited to get it done in Cork.”

The Northern Ireland Planned Healthcare Scheme (NIPHS) allows patients in the Republic of Ireland to access treatment in Northern Ireland. Patients pay upfront, with the HSE reimbursing all, or part, of the cost afterwards. The scheme does not cover travel and accommodation.

To apply, you must be living in the Republic for one year or intend to live here for at least one year. You must be eligible for the healthcare you want in the Republic’s public health system and you must have an outpatient consultation before in-patient or day case treatment. Having private health insurance does not exclude you from the scheme.

Essentially, NIPHS is a cross-border treatment option that enables patients to avoid long waiting lists and regain their independence and quality of life sooner. Burke learned that Mary had undergone her hip replacement at Kingsbridge Private Hospital in Belfast.

“When I told Martina I was going to Belfast, she said, ‘What about my knee?’ and that was it. We decided to go together.”

In mid-June last year, both women travelled to meet the consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Kingsbridge Private Hospital. This was to assess their suitability for joint replacement surgery. “Both of us were suitable,” says Burke. “We went in together and told him we wanted to be operated on the same day. He said it could be arranged. That gave us such reassurance.”

Martina O’Riordan: 'My knee would give underneath me — I got a couple of falls — I’d be so afraid coming downstairs. It took over my life.' Photo: Gerard McCarthy

“We were batting for each other all the time,” says O’Riordan.

BY now, Burke had discovered she needed two hip replacements. “I didn’t know until I went to Belfast that I had arthritis in my right hip, too.

“I wasn’t feeling it, but it showed up on X-ray.”

She decided to have separate surgeries, rather than having the two hips done at the same time.

On the morning of July 29, Burke underwent her first hip replacement (she had her second last October). That afternoon, O’Riordan had her knee replacement.

“When I was going up to theatre, I passed Nora’s room and she was back: Her husband, Willie, was with her. I waved to her, and she waved back, and off I went,” says O’Riordan, who has one London-based daughter and three grandchildren.

“That evening, they wheeled Nora over to where I was, and we had a cup of tea and a biscuit together.”

Burke recalls being pain-free straightaway. “I’ve total freedom now. I can walk without any aids. It’s a completely different life.”

Nora Burke (left) and Martina O’Riordan (right): 'We were at each other’s weddings'. Photo: Gerard McCarthy

O’Riordan also swiftly recovered. Within weeks, she was mobile and soon after flew to London independently to visit her daughter. Six weeks later, she was back behind the wheel of her car for the first time in months. “I was nervous, but I drove [very slowly]. After that, my confidence just grew. I can go places now without thinking twice. There’s no pain, no fear. I walk into a room with confidence again.”

No waiting list

Laurence Cusick, consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Kingsbridge Private Hospital in Belfast, sees 1,500 patients from the Republic each year, including O’Riordan and Burke last year. “Patients come to me with knee and hip pain that they’ve generally had for months or years. Some have been on a waiting list to be seen in the South for 18 months up to three years-plus.”

Cusick reassures patients that they do not need to have been on a waiting list to be treated at Kingsbridge. “Essentially, you just need to be seen by your GP. You tell your GP you’ve a problem with your knee or hip and ask to be referred up to Northern Ireland.”

He says patients’ first question is when they can get it done. “And it’s generally within six weeks, sometimes between two and three. They’re absolutely relieved to be finally getting the surgery they require.”