Dr Noel Reilly began to fail soon after his 80th birthday at Christmas, and died last month. He was secretary general of the Irish Medical Association (IMA) for 25 years from 1958 and was central to health service affairs throughout his period of office.
He was the only Irish doctor to make a career as a whole time chief executive in a medical organisation. His predecessors as medical secretary (as the chief executive in the IMA, was then called) were doctors on pension from previous careers. His successors, with one brief exception, have not been medically qualified. The change may have resulted in better conditions for doctors, but the stars are less bright and warmth is fading.
Noel took up his IMA post during a storm and throughout this tenure the association was continuously subjected to strong winds of change. The storm was caused by the adamant refusal of the then Minister, Mr McEntee, to deal with the association. For over five years he denied it access to his department and claimed the IMA had no legal entitlement to negotiate with him.
The matter at issue was seen by the IMA as a matter of conscience, involving patient confidentiality; the Minister would not accept this. The row became so bitter that the Minister, on one occasion following the publication of the minutes of the IMA Central Council sent inquiries to the relevant employing local authorities asking if the named doctors who had attended the meeting had authorised leave for the date mentioned.
Eventually peace was restored, but not before the Medical Union, a trade union, was founded in order to obtain a negotiating licence. The union followed an IMA referendum and the two organisations were intended to be complementary but the inevitable "split" soon took place. Rapid advances in medicine and political pressure, following the lead set by the NHS in Britain, generated the winds of change.
The Poor Law structure which governed the dispensary general practitioner service and the local authority county hospitals was replaced: one by the general medical service giving patients a choice of doctor, the other by eight health boards. The hospitals in the cities were amalgamated, enlarged and rebuilt and their consultants subjected to contracts of service, non consultant doctors in hospitals were regraded and their numbers greatly increased. These were very major changes for doctors who had planned their careers under a different system.
There was little common ground between the administrators within the Department of Health and the general body of the profession. Noel Reilly was the catalyst who changed the chemistry. He had the confidence of the professionals because he was in touch with their concerns and fears and he gained the confidence of the policy makers in the department, because he had worked for so long within their system and knew instinctively how officials would view a problem. A quietly spoken Mayoman, Noel was remarkable for his modesty, he disliked the limelight and never gave a media interview. When he spoke in public it was to give facts, not opinions.
Doctors in trouble turned to Noel who would importune department officials, colleagues and even Ministers, to protect the shorn lamb. He lent his full weight and that of his office to the long established Medical Benevolent Fund, a charity for medical widows and orphans which embraces 32 counties.
IMA House was a happy place through Noel's reign, and he treated his staff like family members.
His great failure was his inability to come to terms with the Medical Union. The breach remained yet the association thrived and Noel, with his wife, Nancy, also a public health doctor, turned annual meetings into major social and professional events.
Besides his busy schedule at home, Noel became very active on a wider stage. He attended BMA annual meetings assiduously and he became friendly with the influential figures in that organisation. They, in turn, gave their experiences to IMA meetings. Noel served for three years as secretary general of the Standing Committee of Doctors of the EEC and was active in the policy making of the World Medical Association.
Within weeks of his retirement in 1983, Noel was struck by sudden and complete blindness which proved untreatable. This was followed later by the death of Nancy, and later still by other painful afflictions. He did not complain and remained calm, courteous and humorous with his friends. Noel was fortunate in the support he gained from his large family. He and Nancy had seven daughters, four sons and 23 grandchildren. Our sympathy goes out to them.