Dr Victoria Coffey, who died recently in St James's Hospital, an institution to which she had devoted her professional life, was the doyen of Irish Paediatricians. Born in 1911, she came of a respected Dublin family - her grandfather had been Lord Mayor. She had an intimate knowledge of, and love for, the dwellers of the inner city.
Victoria (Vicki) qualified from the Royal College of Surgeons in 1936. She was a student and house officer in the Meath Hospital, the cradle of the Dublin School of Medicine, in the days of Tom Lane, Oliver St John Gogarty, Henry Stokes and his cousin, William Boxwell and a young Robert Collis. It is little wonder that she emerged with strong qualities of leadership and a pugnacious personality that was destined to conquer a most unpromising professional environment.
Having gained experience in obstetrics and children's diseases and a DPH Diploma, Victoria was appointed as a medical officer to St Kevin's Hospital in 1943. This was then run by commissioners on behalf of the Dublin Board of Assistance.
The salaries paid by this rate supported institute were meagre. It was the largest hospital in Dublin with over 1,500 beds, mainly for chronic patients. It had a tiny medical staff. The hospital admitted those regarded as suffering from conditions unlikely to respond to treatment. Much of the nursing was done by nursing attendants supervised by registered nurses. Patients helped with domestic chores such as cleaning.
There were some acute wards. Victoria was put in sole charge of a maternity department (22 beds), the sick infants' ward (40 beds), the Children's Hospital (74 beds). She also had supervisory duties in other wards. She had to do duty for the medical superintendent when he became ill for a prolonged period.
It is not surprising that in 1947 the Commissioner paid a glowing tribute to her fortitude. These grim conditions improved in the 1950s with the appointment of more nursing staff and medical staff until the hospital had a well qualified staff of full-time physicians and surgeons.
It was, however, many years before an additional consultant in paediatrics was appointed and by then Victoria had acquired additional duties in a maternity home for unmarried mothers and their children who remained in care for some time.
This back-breaking work load was a challenge rather than a cause of complaint. Victoria became interested in the unglamorous aspects of paediatrics - those children regarded as untreatable. In a paper given in 1954 to the Royal Academy of Medicine of Ireland, she found her hospital was bequeathed "many of the hopeless or incurable congenital abnormalities in the city". Rather than "stand by and watch these patients die", she began to take the slope up her Everest.
Her first paper in 1953 dealt with syphilis in children born to unmarried mothers (the incidence was about 1 per cent). Then, with the help of the Medical Research Council and Prof Jessop of the Meath Hospital as well as Trinity College, Victoria began her studies of children born with congenital diseases.
The effort she put into her research is illustrated in a study conducted on behalf of the Medical Research Council and the Department of Health into the effect of Thalidomide in the Republic. In a six-month period she visited 174 institutions in the State where children had been born and examined the records of over 86,000 births to determine the defects found during two periods, one prior to Thalidomide use, and one when it was available in Ireland.
Dr Coffey, with Prof Patrick Moore, was among the pioneers in Ireland in the study of metabolic disorders in the new-born. She also studied the effects of maternal viral infections on the new-born and was an early investigator of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in Ireland. Her numerous publications covered virtually all aspects of congenital disorders.
Academic recognition came in abundance. In 1961 she was made a lecturer in teratology in Trinity College. Her dissertation on "The Incidence and Aetiology of Congenital Defects in Ireland" gained her a Ph.D. from TCD in 1965. She was conferred with the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1979 and was also elected an honorary Fellow of the American College. She was a founder fellow of the Faculty of Paediatrics in 1981.
Victoria was much in demand as a chairperson where her strong, no-nonsense personality kept business moving briskly. She was President of the Biological Society in the Royal College of Surgeons for an unprecedented two years and President of the College Graduate Association. She was a founder member of the Irish American Paediatric Society in 1968 and its president in 1974. In 1955 Vicki survived poliomyelitis, contracted no doubt in the course of her hospital work. This left unpleasant sequelae but these failed to diminish her energy. She had sufficient left over from her professional duties to raise funds over many years for the Dominican Mission. Her brother, Father Cecil OP, served as provincial of the order in Ireland.
With the aid of friends and colleagues the Foundation for the Prevention of Childhood Handicap was instituted and Vicki became its Director of Research. Funds were raised to allow her to continue her research until she was over 80 years old.
Vicki was the most positive person I have known. She saw an objective and did not rest until it was achieved. She found paths for lost juniors, gave courage to waverers and could instil enthusiasm in her co-workers. H.E.C.