Friends of The Coombe
Friends of the Coombe is a registered charity that was established in 1982 to assist the development of The Coombe Hospital, support its vital research programmes and enhance the care it gives to patients and their families.
The charity engages with the hospital, its clinicians, patients and supporters in order to:
Identify the things that would enhance the hospital’s ability to provide specialist care to women and newborns but cannot be funded by the hospital or any other source
Encourage and invest in innovative and creative thinking and research
Raise funds to support projects that help The Coombe provide specialist care to women and newborns and enhance the patient experience across all services. Maternity Services, Women’s Health and Neonatology, including all allied services such as peri-operative medicine, medical social work, radiology, laboratory services, physiotherapy, mental health services, dietetics and bereavement support.
Support patients, parents and others as they fundraise in order to help the Friends of the Coombe help The Coombe Hospital.
There is an enormous pressure on resources and, through fundraising alone, Friends of the Coombe has bought a long list of vital equipment, invested in capital development projects, funded education, training and research projects and provided accommodation for parents whose babies are being cared for in the Hospital’s Neonatal Centre, all of which help to enhance the quality of care and patient experience provided by The Coombe Hospital and its staff.
The charity funds projects right across the hospital ranging from those which require as little as €50 to those which need much much more to implement. Regardless of the project size, the same criteria apply - how will patients benefit and will the funding contribute to the hospital maintaining its status as a centre of excellence.
Like all charities, Friends of the Coombe has to prioritise need and so it works closely with the Master and departmental heads to ensure that it focuses on the things which cannot be funded from other resources. Most importantly, the charity is accessible to staff. Where there is a need Friends of the Coombe are able to respond quickly and that impact can be felt right throughout the hospital.
Thanks to the generosity of its supporters, Friends of the Coombe delivered a very special baby to The Coombe Hospital to help it transform the way in which it trains healthcare professionals. The baby – known as Paul - is the world’s most advanced ‘real life’ and ‘real time’ premature baby clinical skills simulator and the most accurate recreation of a preterm baby born in the 27th week of pregnancy available today. Measuring just 35 cm long and weighing less than 1,000g, he was developed by a team of experts in the fields of neonatology, software development, mechanical engineering, Hollywood special effects design and animatronics.
The arrival of the Paul Simulator followed a year-long €75,000 fundraising campaign which formed the first part of a multi-phase project to help develop a state-of-the-art clinical skills laboratory at The Coombe Hospital which will encompass obstetrics, gynaecology, neonatology and anaesthetics training.
Pictured are Dr Pamela O’Connor, Consultant Neonatologist and Professor Sharon Sheehan, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and former Master of The Coombe Hospital.