The UCC Surgeon Noonan Society is a registered charity (CHY 10103) whose aim is to provide medical aid to Africa, through fundraising and volunteerism. Surgeon Noonan is a well-established society, founded in 1977 to commemorate the late Mr Tim Noonan, a UCC Medical School surgeon.

The Charity is run voluntarily by 4th year medical students from UCC. Each year, our goal is to raise over 100,000 euro, all of which goes directly towards underfunded rural hospitals in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The money raised by our fundraising is brought to the hospitals by medical students each summer. Each June, over forty students travel to hospitals in Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia, bringing with them much needed medical supplies and financial aid. These students then work voluntarily in the hospitals for four weeks.

Students cover all travel expenses themselves; ensuring that 100% of funds raised goes towards our beneficiary hospitals. We have a strong accountability policy, which involves monitoring what our beneficiary hospitals intend on spending the funds on, as well as stringent follow-up on what the money is spent on annually.

We run a variety of fundraising events throughout the academic year, including the annual Surgeon Noonan Ball, Grand Raffle, Blood Pressure Clinics, Race Night, Table Quiz as well as Coffee Mornings and weekly Flag Days.

Every year, we also try to collect medical supplies to distribute to the hospitals we visit. These hospitals are desperately lacking in basic analgesics, antibiotics, vitamins, sterile medical equipment etc. The people involved in healthcare in the Munster region rally around every year and donate as much as they can.

The finance which we provide to these hospitals not only serves as maintenance funding, but also subsidizes larger projects examples of such developments undertaken with the aid of the Surgeon Noonan Society include the building of new wards, a surgical unit and the introduction of an HIV Outreach Clinic.

For those who participate, it is the experience of a lifetime, and has been an extremely rewarding aspect of university for UCC medical students for the past 36 years.