Sr Pat Kelly: a pioneer of tropical medicine

Pat Kelly, who died recently aged 91, was a medical doctor and a nun, a pioneer of tropical medicine who also made a significant contribution to the Irish missionary effort. She spent much of the first half of her career caring for the sick in Nigeria and Tanzania.

Latterly, she worked at the Medical Missionaries of Mary tropical medicine unit in Drogheda, Co Louth, preparing students for work in countries where yellow fever, dengue and malaria had to be confronted.

Invaluable

Her pioneering work on how tropical diseases affected the indigenous people, and also those who travelled long distances to minister and work with them, proved invaluable to other missionary orders, denominations and business people.

When Kelly began work tropical medicine was less well understood than today: it has since expanded to include conditions exacerbated by lack of resources, such as HIV, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrhoea.

Bridget Patricia Kelly – always known as Pat or Sr Pat – grew up in Co Cavan, with her twin sister Mary and younger siblings Éilis and Seán. After secondary school in Monaghan, she entered the Medical Missionary order in 1943 and studied medicine at University College, Dublin.

An attractive young woman with a passion for sport, she had admirers and admitted to her superior, Mother Mary Martin, that she thought she was falling in love. The Dublin-born founder of the order told her, “That’s all right dear, being in love is good”, but withheld permission for her to go to Croke Park. “Nuns don’t go to matches,” she ruled.

Historic

However, Kelly got to hear Michael O’Hehir’s radio commentary when Cavan defeated Kerry in the historic 1947 All- Ireland football final played in the polo grounds in New York.

Having qualified as a doctor, Kelly was posted to Nigeria. From 1951 to 1953 she worked in Anua and Urua Akpan. She returned to Ireland to qualify in obstetrics before serving two more years in Nigeria.

Later, she was posted to Tanzania and also served short periods in the United States. In 1973, she returned to Ireland and spent 22 years working in the tropical unit at the Lourdes hospital in Drogheda.

There, she provided advice and inoculations for countless people working overseas, and treated those who returned with tropical illnesses.

On the mission field tending to mothers and children was a constant for the Medical Missionaries of Mary. The order had been set up barely six years before Kelly joined it at the age of 18, and to a large extent people like her had to make it up as they went along.

Sister Pat Kelly is survived by her brother Seán. Her sisters Mary and Éilis predeceased her.