Sr Lucy O'Brien, MB, MRCOG, FRCPI, spent more than 25 years as a missionary in Zambia. As a member of the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary, as well as a highly qualified physician and gynaecologist, she administered to the poorest of the poor in one of the African countries most affected by the HIV/Aids epidemic. Small in stature, she had a big heart and is fondly remembered in a country to which she devoted most of her missionary life.
Born in Ballinderry, Cummer, near Tuam, Co Galway in 1923, she was professed as a nun in 1945. After qualifying as a doctor in 1952, Sr Lucy was assigned to Nigeria a year later, where she worked in mission hospitals for 14 years. She was in Nigeria during the Biafran war and having showed her remarkable skills in gynaecology, she was sent to specialise as a gynaecologist in London.
After qualifying, she worked in a mission hospital in Sierra Leone for four years and then went for a well earned sabbatical in 1975. In 1976 she was assigned to Zambia and for the next quarter of a century became an angel of mercy to so many in her new position in Monze Hospital. There she became a legend as a doctor and gynaecologist for her skill, commitment and dedication, helping to expand the district hospital and establish a nationally renowned gynaecology service. Thousands of Zambian women owe their lives to Sr Lucy's skills.
She did everything she could to tackle the Aids epidemic in a country considered to be at the heart of the African Aids belt. She was aware from an early stage of the huge psychological damage caused by Aids as well as the obvious medical threat and pointed out that millions of Zambian children orphaned by Aids would become the parents of the future and the impact on these children of losing both parents at such an early age had yet to be considered.
In 2003 Sr Lucy was honoured for her service to the women of Zambia with one of the country's highest honours, the Order of Distinguished Service: First Division, presented by President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa. She was also awarded an honorary fellowship by the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland for her contribution to medicine and healthcare.
When she retired from Monze, she did not retire from work and returned to Lusaka where she continued her ministry of caring for sick women and children. She died in Lusaka on April 10th, after a lifetime of service to the poor and ill.
A former colleague of Sr Lucy's in Zambia, HE Counihan MD, FRCPI, described her as one of the few doctors he had met in a long professional career who had no enemies or even critics: "She never had to raise her voice - if indeed she knew how - to get others to do their best. This was achieved by a matter-of-fact manner and her ready smile. Her junior staff found her a patient teacher and she did much to help in their careers," he said in tribute, adding that her skill was matched by her modesty.
Dr Dermot McDonald, MB, FRCOG, former master of Holles Street Hospital in Dublin, said Sr Lucy's medical experience was not restricted to obstetrics and gynaecology but that she was a skilled general surgeon and an erudite physician. He described her as one of the many Irish priests, doctors, nuns, social workers, teachers and engineers who "went on the missions" to give their time to those in need of help in Africa, India and South America.
At her funeral Mass in Monze Cathedral, the flags of four nations were carried at the offertory procession - Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Ireland - to represent the countries to which Sr Lucy had dedicated her life so selflessly.
In compliance with her own wishes, Sr Lucy was laid to rest in her adopted and beloved Zambia on Wednesday, April 12th, at Chikuni Mission near Monze.
P.H.