Hickey, Maurice Desmond

by Turlough O'Riordan

Hickey, Maurice Desmond (1915–2005), surgeon, was born in Cork city on 11 June 1915, the fifth of nine children of Maurice Hickey, merchant, and his wife Hannah Joan (née Hickey), who lived on the Western Road, Cork. Educated at Presentation Brothers College, Cork, and Rochestown College, Co. Cork, he studied medicine at UCC, graduating MB with first class honours (1941). Displaying a clear aptitude for surgery, he won the Peel memorial prize as the outstanding UCC graduate of the year, the Pearson medal in surgery and the Blayney scholarship and bursary in surgery. He graduated M.Ch. (NUI) in 1943, winning the prestigious Henry Hutchinson Stewart scholarship in surgery and was elected FRCS (Edinburgh) the same year.

He trained at Nottingham General Hospital and Nottingham City Hospital. While working as assistant thoracic surgeon in Nottingham, he married Dr Mary Bourke, also from Cork, on 23 August 1945. Moving to the London Chest Hospital, where he trained under Thomas Holmes Sellors, the leading British thoracic surgeon of his generation, Hickey became surgical first assistant (junior consultant) and later chief assistant surgeon at the hospital, and was thus exposed to the front line of thoracic surgery and the surgical treatment of tuberculosis (TB) in Britain.

Returning to Ireland, in 1948 he was the first local authority cardio-thoracic surgeon in the country (alternately titled 'national consultant thoracic surgeon') to organise, manage and lead a new national surgical programme to tackle TB. His training, experience and recognised abilities brought advantage when applying for this post, which unusually was advertised in the press. His appointment was part of the sweeping changes brought in under the new minister for health, Noel Browne (qv), in the wake of the 1948 general election. Browne rapidly instigated an expansion of surgical and recuperative facilities for TB sufferers to combat the severe impact of the disease in Ireland; public expenditure on TB treatment rose four-fold between 1948 and 1953. Three thoracic surgery suites were opened, in Dublin serving the east, in Mallow, Co. Cork, serving the south, and in Castlereagh, Co. Roscommon, serving the west. Hickey organised and managed this programme – which involved deft balancing of competing regional interests for scarce resources – and he spent two days of each week in Dublin (working in the Rialto Chest Hospital (later St James's) and St Mary's Hospital in the Phoenix Park), two days in Mallow, and the final day in Castlereagh. Given carte blanche by Browne to request whatever he thought was required from the department, Hickey led from the front and assumed a considerable workload. Offered a chauffeur-driven car by the department, he declined the offer, yet managed a significant surgical and administrative workload, driving hundreds of miles each week between the three surgical units.

He kept up with the latest international techniques, propagating them throughout Ireland. In 1950 he was repairing mitral valves in the heart, a technique pioneered in 1949 in the USA, and he was also repairing the hearts of 'blue babies'. As effective therapeutic drugs emerged from trials in the 1950s, sanatoria were closed and TB surgical services scaled back, allowing Hickey to base himself in Mallow and focus increasingly on cardiac surgery. In 1956 he moved to the newly opened St Stephen's Hospital, Sarsfield Court, Glanmire, Cork, where he developed an interest in congenital heart disease and defects, especially in children. He undertook the first procedure (1957) in Ireland to close the holes in the hearts of young children, at St Finbarr's Hospital, Cork. He estimated that 600 children were born in Ireland each year with some kind of congenital abnormality of the heart. He made the most of the facilities available in the city, working closely with Desmond Gaffney, who was appointed chief anaesthetist in 1960, to build St Stephen's into one of the centres of cardiac surgery in Ireland. He and Gaffney together visited specialist cardiac units in the USA, Europe and the UK, funded by WHO fellowships which allowed them access to cutting-edge methods, procedures and technologies in cardiac surgery. They married considerable laboratory work with clinical and surgical innovation. Hickey was appointed to a lectureship in thoracic surgery at UCC in 1966, St Stephen's having become a UCC teaching hospital in 1964. He later worked in Cork Regional Hospital and Cork University Hospital. Although an active Roman catholic, during the 1970s he supported the campaign to make available family planning services, which the Southern Health Board were opposing.

Hickey saw at first hand the ravages of TB in Britain and Ireland at mid-century – how poverty and austerity impacted on community health. He combined first-rate surgical and clinical ability with a relentless work rate, diligently seeking the best outcomes for all his patients, and eschewing the rewards offered by private practice. His dedication and work ethic made a significant impact in improving patient outcomes. Kind and considerate with patients, he was effective in navigating and managing Irish medical bureaucracy in the interests of his patients, emanating from his prioritisation of patient needs and his championing of public access to specialised surgery and treatments.

Awarded the West Cork Man of the Year award in 1972, he was made a freeman of the city of Cork on 13 June 1992 – the first surgeon to receive that honour – in recognition of his pioneering surgical achievements. On retirement he moved with his wife from Cork to Limerick. When not in Limerick, he was at his holiday home in Baltimore, Co. Cork, where he fished, sailed and played golf. He died in Limerick on 16 May 2005, survived by his wife and their two daughters and two sons. His funeral was held at St Columba's church, Douglas, Cork and he was buried in the adjoining cemetery. (He is not to be confused with Maurice Desmond Hickey (d. 1999), state pathologist and UCD professor.)