Hospital’s happy 40th

Every society can point to developments that consolidated its economic and human progress.

China can point to the Three Gorges Dam, which generates 22,250 megawatts of electricity; America can point to the world’s first transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869.

Ireland can point to rural electrification, which was not yet complete 40 years ago.

In the face of those great achievements, it may seem a stretch to mark the 40th anniversary of the opening of Cork University Hospital — formerly Cork Regional Hospital — by describing it as such a development, yet in the context of healthcare in the south of Ireland it was — and remains so.

It is Ireland’s largest university teaching hospital and the country’s only level 1 trauma centre, because it provides expertise in more than 40 specialties on campus.

There is hardly a Munster family that one time or another was not indebted to the sprawling institution and its dedicated, skilled staff.

In those four decades, the hospital has become a much respected, valuable, and central part of life in the region.

Happy 40th birthday the Wilton Hilton.