Mayo County Clinic opened 70 years ago
By Tom Gillespie
IN 1953 work on the building of a new County Clinic at Castlebar began. The contractor, Mr. Town McHugh of Castlebar, working with all local labour, spared no effort in ensuring that the work would be finished in record time.
This was his second major job in the town, the other being the extension to Castlebar Vocational School.
On April 3, 1954 - 70 years ago this week - The Connaught Telegraph carried a full-page report on the official opening of the County Clinic, which is situated on the Westport Road, opposite the Travellers Friend Hotel.
The report recorded: The clinic contains 37 rooms, including a pram park, waiting-room for 64 persons, examination rooms, offices, surgeries, clinics, one bathroom, X-ray rooms, and offices for the staff of the County Medical Officer of Health.
The building is 210 feet long by 33 feet wide. There is more than 2,000 feet of piping in it, and the same length of conduit wires. The floor is of Marley tiles and terrazzo.
There are 52 electric lights and 100 electric plugs. There are seven post office phones and nine intercom phones. There are five clocks, five toilets, 12 wash hand basins and 53 radiators.
The real reason for the provision of the new clinic, which was described as an offshoot of the regional system of medical treatment in the provinces, is that it would provide specialised services for all persons resident in the county under the following headings: dental, orthopaedic, physiotherapy, oculist, and psychiatry; and at a later stage there will be services for a laboratory technician for the examination of pathological specimens, etc. This technician is at the moment (1954) undergoing a three years’ course of training in Galway University, and his services will become available in August 1955.
There will also be specialist services in surgical, medical and gynaecological treatment, and when the Public Health Act, 1953, comes into operation, the clinic will provide for ante-natal and child welfare treatment.
Of the services mentioned above, the following will become immediately available (within the month of April 1954) on the opening of the clinic: ante-natal treatment, tubercular treatment, orthopaedic medical clinics, gynaecology, surgical clinics, dispensary services, oculist and psychiatric treatment.
The county physician, Dr. Moran, and county surgeon, Mr. Bresnihan, will both hold clinics at the new building, and the ordinary TB and public assistance dispensaries, therefore held in the County Home, will be transferred up to the new clinic.
While rain fell gently on Monday morning, the Archbishop of Tuam, His Grace Most Rev. Dr. Joseph Walsh, blessed the building.
Later at a luncheon given by the contractor and architect at the Imperial Hotel, Castlebar, after the toast to ‘Eire’ had been honoured, Mr. Michael Moran, TD, proposed a toast to the Minister for Health, Dr. Jim Ryan, not only for the financial help he had given to Mayo but as a man. They should all pay tribute to the Minister who, as a boy, shouldered his rifle and went into the GPO in 1916.
Mr. Moran said members of Mayo County Council (who then had responsibility for the administration of health) were anxious to do their best for the sick and poor and were doing their utmost to catch up on the backlog of work that had accumulated over the years.
When at first the amount of grant for the clinic was intimated the county council thought it insufficient. Members of all parties on the council waited on Dr. Ryan and explained to him the poverty of Mayo. Dr. Ryan increased the grant to two-thirds of the total sum required and he was also giving very big grants for works at the county hospital, county home and the mental hospital.
Minister Ryan said: “It has been my policy for some years to provide specialist services in each county so that patients will not be put to the hardship, inconvenience and expense of travelling to Galway or Dublin to obtain the treatment which was not available to them locally.
“In carrying out that policy, well-equipped clinics in which the various specialists can do their best work are a prime necessity. This clinic in Castlebar is a good example of what is being done in this matter.
“This is a clinic which will attract first class specialists. It is expected that within a reasonable time each county will have a similar clinic functioning for its own people.
“As the clinic is being provided in the county hospital grounds the full range of hospital services, X-ray, physiotherapy, etc., will be available for the patients attending here. The clinic will also be available for other services such as diphtheria immunisation and psychiatry.”
The Minister said Mayo County Council had been responsible for pushing the clinic project to completion.
The Minister said he had been told that Mayo had the best county surgeon in Ireland and the county hospital the best matron.
He added: “Mayo might not be the richest county in Ireland and its average valuations might be low, but it is a county that had made wonderful progress.”
Councillor M.J. McGrath, Ballina, proposed a toast to the contractor, Mr. Tom McHugh, and said he was the greatest character in the county, a man who could reduce lines and figures to building and did that in a admirable manner.
Councillor Owen Hughes, Westport, in seconding the toast to Mr. McHugh, said: ‘The contractor in this case is a man I have known for years. I have known and been associated with him in the past in boxing circles and, seeing him, I see the good.”