Magical time for 240 special children during Santa's Cork visit
Santa and Mrs Claus with John, Conn, Mia, Edel, and Alex Tobin. Also included is Cllr Tony Fitzgerald. Picture: Jim Coughlan.
Brave Mia Tobin said all her dreams came true after meeting Santa less than 24 hours after being discharged from her latest hospital admission.
Mia, eight, from Kilcrohane, in West Cork, who was born with Russell-Silver syndrome UPD7 — a very rare condition that affects her growth — is among some 240 very special children who will meet the man in red during his 48-hour visit to Cork city, organised by the remarkable team of elves at the Cork City Hospital Children’s Club (CCHCC) for the first time since covid.
Mia, who has spent a lot of time in Cork University Hospital (CUH), is still recovering from three strokes she suffered in September, during which time doctors discovered a hole in her heart.
But it was all smiles and magic on Wednesday as Mia, her parents, Edel and John, and her brothers, Alex, six, and Conn, three, got the full ‘VIP, jingle bells all-the-way' treatment en route to meet Santa.
“We needed this — we all badly needed this. It was just magical, it was on another level,” Edel said.
The first cohort of children who all attend hospitals and other services across the city travelled with their siblings, parents and carers, through the city on Wednesday by Bus Éireann bus under a full blue-lights escort provided by gardaí, the city’s fire brigade, and a unit of the Cork Airport fire and police service, direct to Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Santa, who was accompanied by Mrs Claus, had set up a special North Pole outpost in Páirc Uí Chaoimh with help from Dwyer’s Electrical and several other city businesses.
But Mia and her family travelled in style in the Lord Mayor’s fancy electric car.
Edel said: “Mia has high-functioning autism and we need to do a lot of planning before we can go anywhere.
“We were told about this Santa visit about two weeks ago, and she was so looking forward to meeting him, and she was so excited about seeing a double-decker bus.
“And for the two boys too, it was great. They’ve been quite upset whenever we’ve had to spend so much time in hospital with Mia.
“John’s parents live near us, and they are just great, taking the boys whenever we have to go to the hospital, so for the boys to be involved in the Santa visit, it was just magical.”
Santa told Mia how brave she has been and said don’t be afraid because he’s always keeping an eye out for her.
And when she was leaving for home, Santa arranged for a double-decker bus to be parked outside, especially for her.
“When Mia came out and saw the bus, she said all my dreams have come true,” Edel said.
In one-to-one meetings with their parents, Santa also met six babies, aged from nine months to two years, who have spent most of their short lives in hospital.
A senior source at the North Pole confirmed later that Mia and all the CCHCC children are on Santa’s ‘nice list’.
“But there are still just over three weeks to go to the big day — he's still making his list, he will be checking it twice, he’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice, so be good, for goodness sake,” the spokes-elf said.
John Looney, founder and chairman of the CCHCC, said, with a wink, that Santa, Mrs Claus and most of the elves have specialist medical training and would be very familiar with how hospitals work.
One of those elves, Aisling Devitt, a paediatric epilepsy advanced nurse practitioner at CUH, revealed how she benefitted from a CCHCC trip to Disneyland Paris about 18 years ago, with her twin sister, Niamh, and their younger brother, Adam.
“It was life-changing," she said.
Mr Looney said this Santa visit, CCHCC's 29th, had been one of the most difficult to organise because it felt like they had to start from scratch after the covid break.
"But we got great support from Pairc Uí Chaoimh, who offered us the venue, and from Cork businesses. And seeing the satisfaction on the children’s faces makes it all worthwhile,” he said.
CCHCC is now fundraising for their first trip to Disneyland Paris since 2019.
