How Chuck Feeney is still helping people age better in Ireland
Researchers are still pushing forward thanks to the philanthropist’s contributions
AT the end of last year the American philanthropist Chuck Feeney was laid to rest in Glasnevin Cemetery, just months before his 93rd birthday.
But the billionaire who gave away his money to help others is still making a positive impact on the lives of people here.
Last week, St James’s Hospital and its fundraising arm, the St James’s Hospital Foundation, named a walkway in honour of Feeney, the hospital’s greatest benefactor on what would have been his 93rd birthday.
The Feeney Way, a walkway leading to the Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing (MISA), a pioneering institution in ageing research and care, which Chuck Feeney generously funded.
‘Chuck Feeney donated almost €2 billion to Ireland and the contribution was transformative to many different aspects of Irish life,’ says Regius Professor Rose Anne Kenny, director of MISA. ‘He identified the areas needing transformation and education was a major one.
‘Ageing was one of the areas he was particularly focused on and he believed that investment by him in both providing good clinical services but also research into ageing could make a big difference to people’s lives but also put Ireland in a leadership place with respect to clinical research practice in ageing.’
The Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing at St James’s Hospital is forging ahead now in the care of the elderly
‘It is a very new state of the art clinical research institute where any research activity we can translate rapidly into good clinical practice,’ says Professor Kenny. ‘Feeney’s philosophy was to give whilst living. He believed it was valuable to the philanthropist to actually see the fruits of his giving he very much believed in that and visited St James’s a number of times to see the progress happening at the institute and contributed a beautiful mural by Desmond Kinney to the institute as a personal gift which is a very uplifting creative feeling as you walk in.’
This corridor has now been named the Feeney Way as a tribute to his work and the number of philanthropists who have taken up his mantle of ‘giving whilst living.’ In his honour we have renamed the corridor leading to the institute he resourced and along the corridor we explain what Chuck Feeney’s contribution was,’ says Professor Kenny.
Research at the centre has already been life-changing for many ‘The seven major areas we work in are stroke, falls, memory and dementia, Park in son’ s disease, bone health and and heart disease in ageing,’ Professor Kenny adds.
One recent change was in conjunction with the TILDA study that has helped prevent repeat falls in over two thirds of elderly people who have experienced a fall for no reason.
‘The people in the study who were falling, a high number of them had cardiovascular disorders for example blood pressure or heart rate abnormalities.
‘And they seemed to have a much higher proportion of those disorders than people vwho were not falling. In the Tilda observation study which was brought into the clinical scenario in James’s A&E, we implanted little devices under the skin to investigate whether there were cardiovascular abnormalities in the very many people who were coming into the emergency department with falls.
‘In patients who attend the emergency department, 15 per cent of all emergencies are people who have fallen.’
Between the research and clinical practice, St James established a link between cardiovascular issues and falls.
‘And in tandem with that we developed a new service model in dealing with older people who had falls and making early diagnoses of underlying cardiovascular disorders and treating them there and then in a specialist outpatient clinic,’ says Professor Kenny.
‘We ran that in tandem with the emergency department so that people who came through with a fall that was unexplained — not a trip or a slip and they didn’t know why they fell — were seen on the same day in this new specialist clinic and we significantly reduced the number of subsequent falls in two thirds of those patients. Not only that but because of the new model of service delivery, it made a big impact on admissions of older people to hospital, people who were coming through with falls.
‘Admissions were reduced by about a third which was the equivalent of freeing up one medical ward — 12 beds for a full year — in the hospital so it had a huge impact.
‘St James saw the benefit and they invested in specialists in the emergency department who were specialised in falls and these cardiovascular disorders that cause falls and treating them and discharging people after treating them rather than admitting them to hospital.’
The HSE has now funded a national audit to see if this new model would be of value were it to be introduced in other hospitals.
And it is a surprising discovery but one with an easy fix.
‘It’s not that complicated, It could mean the the modifications of drugs which is most common thing we do,’ says Professor Kenny adding that a few might need a pacemaker or an ICG but they are in the minority.
‘Once we have identified what is causing the issue, the treatment is very effective and very efficient.’
‘Hospital admissions were reduced by one third’