Vital medical equipment donated to Kenya centre in memory of Irish doctor

Staff at the Centre for Disabilities in Kisuma with the anaesthetic machine.

Vital medical equipment has been donated to a centre for disabilities in Kenya in memory of a young Irish doctor who had worked in the region.

Dr David Gilhooly, a consultant anaesthetist, passed away at the age of 40 in 2019.

He had worked with Cork doctor Jean O’ Sullivan in co-founding Global Emergency Care Skills, a non-profit organisation training healthcare staff in the region.

After he passed away, his family and friends set up a memorial fund to honour his humanitarian work.

The fund, aided by a private contribution from the Clancourt Group, donated a new anaesthetic machine to the Centre for Disabilities in Kisuma (Kenya), whose theatre is now named after him.

This centre specialises in orthopaedic and reconstructive surgery for children born with disabilities or who have suffered traumatic injuries. 

This includes children with severe burns.

It also runs a residential home and school for children whose families cannot look after them.

The fund, named after Dr Gilhooly, works with the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland, and the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists.

Professor O’ Sullivan, an emergency medicine consultant at Tallaght University Hospital and clinical associate professor in surgery at Trinity College Dublin, said he is a much-missed colleague and friend.