TRIBUTES have been paid in Limerick and around the country to a pioneering nurse who hailed from the townland of Brittas in County Limerick. Josephine Bartley was the first director of nursing at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital from its opening in 1987 to her retirement in 1998. She went to her God in May, aged 90.
Her impact on the nursing profession has been recognised, with messages describing her as someone who has left a “great legacy”. The second of five children to John and Nora Bartley (nee Lee), Josephine was educated first as a boarder in Sisters of Mercy School at Doon. READ MORE: Luxury Limerick resort voted number one in Ireland for countryside getaway Her education then took her into the Presentation Secondary School, now Colaiste Nano Nagle in the city.
She trained as a registered general nurse at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, before completing her midwifery training at the Belfast’s Royal Maternity. Following this, she returned to St Vincent’s before moving to Cork’s St Patrick’s Hospital. This move was followed by a homecoming, when Josephine worked in Bedford Row’s Lying-in Hospital, now the University Maternity Hospital at Ennis Road on Limerick’s northside.
Stints abroad followed this - notably working as a ward sister in military hospitals across England and Germany. She also spent a year in the same role at the Central Hospital in the Zambian city of Kitwe. Josephine was responsible for overseeing training for nurses in regional centres across the country at a time when the role of a nurse was becoming more recognised and appreciated.
Indeed, in recognition of her legacy, Beaumont Hospital awards one graduating student nurse the Ms Bartley Prize for Excellence in Nursing Care each year. She was a founding member of the faculty of nursing and midwifery at the Royal College of Surgeons. “She was a gracious lady in every way, and a wonderful advocate for nurses and all aspects of the profession,” one person from Mayorstone wrote on www.
rip.ie Liam Doran, a former general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation described her as a “true lady and leader within nursing”. “Josephine was always focused on the highest quality of nursing care to every patient,” he added.
Local TD Niall Collins and former mayor Gerald Mitchell also paid tributes. Josephine will be forever loved and dearly missed by her sisters Mary (Rice) and Amy (Duggan), nieces, nephews, extended family and friends. May she rest in peace.
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