Little Shea Maguire, Boho, who will being celebrating his first birthday in June, he was the first baby born in the South West Acute Hospital. Shea is pictured with his parents Lisa and Eamon and big sister Aoife
THE South West Acute hospital marks its first birthday in just under a month’s time, but, for one local family there’s another cause for celebration.
Little Shea Maguire, from Boho, was the first child born in the hospital at 7.29am – 31 minutes before the official opening of the hospital on Thursday June 21 and, this week, his mother, Lisa McGuinness, spoke of the mad dash from the Erne Hospital at Cornagrade to the new South West Acute Hospital where she gave birth to her first son.
Back then, Lisa originally rang the Erne hospital at 2am on the Thursday morning that the new hospital was due to open. She was admitted to the Erne at 5am that same morning, and at 7.15am a police escort took her and her partner Eamon to the new hospital.
“We were in the old hospital and didn’t think that we’d have to move, but then the old one was closed up and we were moved, and I started having bad contractions and the ambulance brought me over,” explained Lisa.
“It was just Eamon with me there – to be honest I don’t remember much of it – I didn’t remember coming in, but Eamon remembered it. And he said it was very nice – there were loads of cameras waiting on us.”
Lisa and Eamon only just made it to the hospital before Shea was born.
“I was just glad it was over,” laughed Lisa.
“No, it was nice – it’s something that will mark his milestone when he gets a bit older and is able to look back on everything. We went up there and had a look around. It was so big and you’d your own privacy which was great.”
One year on and much has changed for both the new hospital and baby Shea.
“He’s very big, he’s wearing clothes for two year olds. He’s very tall, broad. He’s very laid back – he’s not crawling yet,” she laughed.
“He adores his sister Aoife who’ll be two at the end of July, anything she does he laughs at.”
She concluded: “We’ve kept cuttings from all the papers in a safe box for him, and a DVD that we were given – so he’ll be able to look back and see for himself that he was such a big part of the history.”
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