Now a qualified paramedic working in Sheffield in England, Donnacha Gately’s career started with a full-time volunteer placement at Cork Simon in 2015. Donnacha went on to work with Cork Simon for a further year before deciding to study paramedics. 

”I don’t think without my experience in Simon I would be where I am today. I always knew I wanted to work with people, but I suppose that experience in Simon gave me insight into quite a lot of different possible career paths, and I was just drawn towards the medical side of things. It shaped the career path I took.

I think with every health care role, the mainstay of it is that you're able to talk to people and people will be able to tell you anything in confidence, and you're not there to judge and they know you're not there to judge; you're there to help. So, I think these skills were all things I picked up from Simon, because that was the mainstay of the role, and it's helped me to this day."

Donnacha talks about what he most enjoys about his work as a paramedic and how it relates to his experience of working at Cork Simon ...