Derry's pioneering nurses to be honoured by Ulster University

The first-ever cohort of student nurses to train at Altnagelvin Hospital is to be honoured at a special ceremony in Ulster University, Magee.

The young nurses began their training in September 1959 in what was the first hospital built after the founding of the NHS  in July 1948 by Aneurin Bevan.

The nurses being honoured are: Ursula Clifford (née Sharkey), Margaret Curley (née Woods), Maureen Sinewicz (née Lagan), Anne Evans (née Gamble), Pat Cowley (née Gormley), Rose Gillian (née Flanagan), Olive Allen (née Long), Bridie Zimmer (née McCann), Frances Shephard (née Barr), Louise Hughes (née Kelly), Yolanda Ekstrom (née Martin) deceased, Agatha Dutton (née Cooke) deceased, Gretta Linehan (née Doherty) deceased, and Brigid Young deceased.

The Class of 1959 who celebrated their 50th anniversary reunion in Rome.

Awards will be presented to the nurses present in the Great Hall of Magee on Friday, November 29. Family members will receive the awards on behalf of  the nurses living abroad and unable to attend, and those who have sadly died.

Speaking to The Derry News, the redoubtable Ursula Clifford said 65 years later the group still meets up regularly.

For their 50 year reunion, the nurses travelled to Rome where the Irish Ambassador at the time hosted a reception in their honour.

Happy 75th birthday NHS

Ursula Clifford recalls being one of the first nurses to train in Altnagelvin Hospital

Originally from Marlborough Road, Ursula was the oldest child of Sibeal Sharkey (née Burke) and Jim Sharkey. She credited her aunt Elizabeth (Lizzy) Doherty (née Sharkey) from Lone Moor Road, a midwife, with piquing her interest in nursing.

“She delivered loads and loads of babies in Derry,” said Ursula, “and she would have taken me on post-natal rounds to see the mothers after they had their babies. In those days they stayed in bed for so many days and you would have got a cup of tea in nearly every house.”

18-year-old Ursula left Thornhill College and began her initial nursing training in Agnes Jones House - in the grounds of Altnagelvin Hospital - in September 1959.

She recalled: “We were there until Christmas, then we got our Christmas holidays, then they put us into the new nurses’ home, where the Breast Clinic is situated today.

Members of the Class of 1959, Ursula Clifford, Margaret Curley (née Woods) and Olive Allen (née Long).

“We had to live in for the first year, even if you came from Derry. We got two passes a month, one until 12.00am and one until 2.00pm,” laughed Ursula. “The home warden who was incharge of accommodation would have come over in a taxi and checked us in and then taken herself back off to the City and County. We could have been out the window, but we didn’t.

“Then, for two weeks, we walked down to the Waterside Hospital. Then, in mid-January, we were in an empty Altnagelvin getting all the beds ready for the opening on February 1. Whenever they began to transfer the old hospitals to Altnagelvin, Waterside was first.  

“The biggest innovation in Altnagelvin was the ‘patient call system,’” smiled Ursula. “Every bed had a two-way radio to the nurse station and the nurses couldn’t get nursing because everybody was using it. It was all a novelty. They had to take them out eventually and put in a buzzer.”

The Class of 1959 was taught by Miss Stewart and Miss McDaid - who oversaw the practical element of the training. 

Reflectiong the group’s enduring friendship, which has spanned 65 years, Ursula spoke fondly of Gretta Linehan, whose family is attending on Friday.

Ursula Sharkey, far left, with her Thornhill College classmates.

“Gretta was from Castlederg and she was one of the first hospice nurses,” said Ursula.

By the time she retired at 55, Ursula had been promoted to critical care services manager - in charge of Theatres, ICU, Casualty and Day Surgery.  

Ursula said she was always happy in the theatres where she said the surgeons were always very respectful of her. 

From left, Ursula Clifford, Cissie Parlour and Briege O'Connell members of the Cholmcille Choir.

“I was also given the opportunity to develop new healthcare ideas,” she added. “When Aisling [Ursula’s daughter, also a nurse] worked in New York, I would have visited her operating theatres and picked up ideas and brought them home.

“For example, the first patient-controlled analgesia - where the patient could press a button post-operation. Sally O’Kane was in charge of the pharmacy and she gave me a pharmacist called Angela Diamond, to work with. We made our own patient-worn machine to start with, and after that a company manufactured them for us,” said Ursula. 

Altnagelvin Hospital which opened on February 1, 1960, under construction.

“When the keyhole surgery came in, that was just outstanding. Paul Bateson [a consultant surgeon in Altnagelvin] said to me one day, ‘There is a doctor in France removing gallbladders using scopes [keyhole surgery]. How could we do the same?’

“We had big cardboard boxes in which we sent instruments to the sterilisation unit. So, we got a box and turned it upside down. We got a pair of gloves and cut the fingers off, to imitate the gallbladder. We tied it all up with water in it and put it through a hole in the box and taped it down. 

“Urology had scopes, so we got those and we started demonstrating and practising and we were the second, if not the first hospital here to use keyhole surgery,” explained Ursula, who described Bloody Sunday as the “beginning of Trauma as we knew it and the preparation and training for Major Incidents”. 

The iconic Princes Macha at Altnagelvin Hospital.

Asked about her happiest time in nursing, Ursula instantly recalled the great relationships she had had with Sister Doherty (Ward 7) and Elizabeth McElhinney (née Tracey), who was Sister in Ward 1 and was killed in the 1972 Claudy Bomb. 

“When I was a student, you learned on the job,” said Ursula, “and the fact we are all still in contact with one another reflects the comeradeship we formed while we were training together.