A knowledgeable, skilled GP
THE death occurred on 4/5/2020 of Dr Paddy Henry, who practised as a G. P. in Sligo for 62 years. Paddy was born in 1928 in Sligo, where his father was a successful businessman.
He was educated in Blackrock College, Dublin and graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons medical school in 1953 .As a student, he excelled at tennis and golf.
He served his internship at Jervis St Hospital, Dublin where, he used to recall, he received the princely sum of £3 a week.
He then moved to England to obtain further training. Staying with his uncle Paddy, who was a GP in Manchester, he obtained various hospital posts in the Chester area where he trained in Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology and General Medicine.
He returned to Ireland in 1956 and commenced practice in Sligo. In the same year, he married Mary Gilheaney from Wicklow, whom he had met some years earlier at a dance in Rosses Point.
Mary had just qualified as an architect. In 1970, he formed a partnership with his friend, Dr Brian Gallagher, calling the practice Medicentre. The practice is still thriving today with Drs Damien Tiernan, Keith Russell and Catherine Barrett as principals.
The new practice was successful from the start and was expanded to 4 partners in 1975 with the addition of Dr Philip Murphy and myself.
Unfortunately, Philip passed away last year. The 4 of us worked together for the next 27 years. Medicentre was one of the first, if not the first, group practices of that size in Ireland, and its success was due, in no small way, to the vision and leadership provided by Paddy and Brian.
It was initially located in a beautiful 3 storey Georgian Terrace in Stephen St, Sligo which had been Paddy and Mary’s home before they built “Gorse Hill” in Ballyweelin overlooking Sligo Bay. “Gorse Hill” was designed by Mary.
However, it soon became apparent that new premises were needed and with Paddy’s drive and business skills, the practice relocated to Kempton Promenade.
There an empty shell of a new building was transformed into a purpose built general practice building. The official opening was performed Dr.
Rory O’Hanlon, then Minister of Health who was a former classmate of Paddy’s in Blackrock and was himself a G.P.
He paid a huge tribute to Paddy, describing him as” one of the foremost General Practitioners in Ireland at that time”. The practice had a full time practice nurse, 3 secretarial staff and part time attendance of a physiotherapist, dietician and psychologist, which was most unusual in Irish general practice at that time.
General practice in the 1970s was very different from practice today. There was no Irish College of General Practitioners, no Continuous Medical Education, with most practices operating as single handed entities. There was very little interaction between doctors. Locally, at first, and then nationally,
Paddy was a driving force in bringing doctors together and helping us learn from one another. In 1977, the Co Sligo G.P. Society was formed, with Paddy as its first Chairman. Its motto was, and still is “a Society run by G.Ps for G.P.s where issues concerning general practice could be discussed by G.P.s in a mutually supportive environment”.
He carried the same drive on the national stage and, in 1983 became a member of the Foundation Council of the newly formed Irish College of General Practitioners. He was elected the fifth President of the College in 1988.
Since his time in England in the 1950s, Paddy maintained a close association with the Royal college of G.P.s in London, and his commitment to General Practice was recognised by them when he was awarded an honorary Fellowship by R.C.G.P. in 1980.
He was later awarded a fellowship of the faculty of Occupational Medicine. He served a term on the Post Graduate Medical and Dental Board and was a member of the health committee of the Medical Council of Ireland for 8 years.
He also served as Medical officer of Cregg House in Sligo, a service for intellectually disabled people, from its foundation in 1961 for 38 years.
The great love of his life was his family. He was married to Mary for 64 years and the joy their 3 children, Fiona, Aine and Pat, gave them was visible to all.
The arrival of his granddaughter Aisling, to Mike and Fiona, was an occasion of great celebration.
Their home “Gorse Hill” was a locus of great peace and serenity to Paddy and it was from here that he practised single handed after his retirement from Medicentre in 2002. He retired from medicine in 2015 at the age of 87 and Mary and he moved to Dublin to be near their family.
Paddy Henry is the author of 4 books, 3 of which relate to the humour in medicine and the fourth recounts the history of medical care in Sligo from 1800-1965.
Interestingly, Mary and Paddy’s former home, and the first location of Medicentre, was in Stephen St., a street in Sligo where there has been a medical presence since 1820 and that tradition continues to this day.
Paddy was a very warm and engaging man. He was always immaculately dressed and was well known through-out Sligo for his wonderful collection of bow-ties.
He was a man of great faith. This was a source of great strength to him, not in a showy ostentatious way but in a very private personal belief. He attended Mass each morning prior to commencing his surgery at 8.30 am, and was a regular attender at the Annual Retreat held by Blackrock College P.P.U. each Easter.
The social side of his character manifested itself on many occasions.
He had a superb tenor voice and his singing of “You are my Hearts Delight” was a pleasure to hear. However, it was in the practice of medicine that Paddy excelled.
His reputation as a superb diagnostician was well known and patients travelled from all over the North West to avail of his opinion.
He practised medicine on the principle of a comprehensive history followed by a thorough examination.
Former patients who had moved elsewhere in Ireland frequently returned to attend him - on one occasion, I recall meeting a husband and wife who had travelled from Dublin to seek his advice.
He always kept up to date with the latest developments in medicine and was a frequent attender at conferences, both here in Ireland and in England.
This was no mean feat in the early years of his career in the 1950s and 1960s.
His funeral in Sligo Cathedral could only be attended by his immediate family (due to Covid 19 restrictions). As a mark of respect to him, his colleagues, including former trainees of the Medicentre practice, formed a silent guardof-honour for the passage of his coffin from the church door to the hearse (under Covid 19 guidelines).
This was a small but entirely fitting tribute to a man who has done so much for the development of modern General Practice, not just in Sligo, but in Ireland.
May he Rest in Peace