OPTUM Ireland hosted the Inaugural Optum Health care Scholarship Awards Ceremony at Rockhill estate in Letterkenny recently.
The five Scholars, who were present at the Awards’ Ceremony with their parents and school principals, are in their first year studying Medicine (NUIG), Pharmacy (Ulster University), General Nursing (LYIT), Computing (LYIT) and Stratified Medicine (Ulster University).
They were formally presented with their awards by Padraig Monaghan, CEO of Optum Ireland and representatives from third level institutions in the region.
During the glittering awards’ ceremony, Mr Monaghan commended the young people for their dedication to their chosen career path and their resilience and acknowledged the first-class secondary education provided by schools in the county.
Cognizant of the issue in relation to access to third level in Ireland with County Donegal being at a particular geographic disadvantage, Mr Monaghan expressed his hope that the Optum Scholarship programme would encourage other companies in the region to provide scholarships to assist local students to access third level education. Scholars Liam Orr and Caoilinn Diver finished off the night with a lively set of traditional jigs which captured the spirit of the event and indeed the scheme.
Guest speaker, Katie Mullan from County Derry spoke about her experience of captaining the Irish Women’s hockey team to the World Cup final in August of this year, the first Irish team ever to reach a World Cup final.
Katie holds a Master’s degree in Bio-medical engineering and stated that she would not have achieved all of her success without the scholarship that she herself had received.
She congratulated Optum for stepping in to support students in Donegal to access third level education and urged the young scholars to take hold of the opportunity and ‘dream big’.
The scheme will provide five dedicated scholarships every year to County Donegal under this bespoke bilingual scheme in association with LYIT, Ulster University and NUI Galway under the North-West and Regional Schemes.
The North-West Scheme provides two scholarships to applicants who register on a designated course in LYIT at a value of €2,500 per annum. One scholarship is awarded to an eligible applicant who registers on a designated course in UU Magee. The value of this scholarship is €5,000 per annum to cover the cost of tuition fees.
The Regional Schemes allocate two scholarships for eligible applicants who register on a designated course in either UU Coleraine, or NUI Galway.
The value of the scholarship is €7,000 per annum in recognition of the higher living costs and travel for students who study ‘away from home’ in Galway and the tuition fees, travel and living costs for students who study in Coleraine.
The 2019/20 Optum Healthcare scheme will open at the beginning of March 2019.
Optum, a leading information and technology enabled health services business, is the fastest growing part of UnitedHealth Group and is located in a newly refurbished campus at Windyhall, Letterkenny and in offices in Dublin. Optum Ireland has designed a bi-lingual scholarship scheme for County Donegal in line with the Company’s mission to contribute to the healthcare system and create the health-care workers of the future.
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