UCC SONM 25 Year Book

UCC / School of Nursing and Midwifery

Source: Staff of Our Lady’s Hospital Cork, John Gilroy

Mrs. Hannah Henry.

by the Department of Health and in 1989, training was suspended at the hospital. Training of students recommenced in 1991 on a Regional basis, with the name of the School changed to the Southern Health Board (Cork and Kerry) Regional School of Psychiatric Nursing. The new name also reflected the fact that the Psychiatric nurse training School at St. Finian’s, Hospital Killarney had been closed some years earlier. Mr. Rick Deady was appointed in April 1991. Mrs, Henry remained as Principal Tutor until her retirement in 1996 after 35 years’ service. She did considerable work to raise the profile of psychiatric nursing in the Southern area of Ireland and left a legacy of history in her seminal text “Our Lady’s Hospital Cork: History of a Hospital in Cork Spanning 200 years. Our Lady’s Hospital closed in 1997. In 1997, the last group of the hospital certificate trained psychiatric nurses graduated. In September 1998 Mr. Harry Gijbels was appointed as a College Lecturer in UCC at the then Department of Nursing University College Cork but seconded to the Southern Health Board to be the Principal Tutor at the Regional School of Psychiatric Nursing then still situated at Our Lady’s Hospital to implement the 3-year Diploma in Nursing (Psychiatry) which was offered in collaboration with UCC. Mr. Harry Gijbels had come from the UK where he had extensive experience in both psychiatric nursing practice and education including experience in being part of Project 2000 (The UK initiative to move nurses’ education into third level education) at the College where he worked. Harry relocated the teaching from Our Lady’s Hospital to diverse

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