Tree planting ceremony at Mayo University Hospital to NHS workers

By Tom Gillespie

IRISH nurses who have served in the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK are to be honoured at a tree planting ceremony at Mayo University Hospital, Castlebar, on Friday.

Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, Emeritus Professor of Nursing at the University of West London, will plant the tree at 2 p.m. to recognise the 30,000 Irish nurses who have worked in the NHS, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.

Dame Anionwu has been named among the Cherishing the Irish Diaspora Awards recipients, which will be presented by the Mayo Emigrant Liaison Committee.

Dame Anionwu is of Irish/Nigerian heritage, her ancestors coming from Athlone and Wexford.

She is the first nurse since Florence Nightingale to be awarded the Order of Merit - a gift of the English Monarch alone and only 24 living people can hold the title at any one time.

She was invited to take part in a recent service in Westminster Abbey to mark 75 years of the NHS.

Many Mayo people have left their mark on healthcare in the UK over the years.

Emily McManus, whose roots were in Killeadan House, Bohola, was a former matron of Guys Hospital and was awarded an OBE.

More recently, Castlebar native Professor Brian Dolan, OBE, has led a global movement to encourage patients to get up, dressed and moving while in hospital to reduce the risk of fall, pressure ulcers and the length they spend on hospital.