Training as a nurse in the 1970s by

Sean McCorry

Based on memories recounted by Sean McCorry to Noreen Cunningham in February 2020.

At the beginning of October 1973, I saw an advertisement in the local paper for jobs in Daisy Hill Hospital for Porters and Ward Orderlies. After an interview, I got a letter offering me a job as a Ward Orderly and I commenced work on Monday 29th of October. I had no way of knowing it at the time, but it was the start of a journey lasting forty-two years.

Working on the wards involved a range of duties from making beds, bathing and helping to feed patients to putting on bandages. As time went on I decided to train as a nurse, I made a few enquires and found out that mature students could do an entrance test to get into the Southern Area Group School of Nursing. I found out the format and got IQ tests papers from a bookshop in Newry, and timed them with an alarm clock, night after night. I took the exam on 23rd June 1976, which was a really hot day, I had prepared as much as I could, and when I turned the page over I thought this is fine, near the end I left one question because I knew it was going to take too long. Just as I thought I was finished, I found out I still had to write an essay, ‘a holiday of a lifetime’, so I just wrote it as if I was still at primary school. I think they were just looking for spelling and neat eligible writing.

I passed the exam and commenced training on 7th March 1977. It was six weeks in the School of Nursing and an exam every Friday.

My first placement was in Banbridge Hospital, which was like a cottage hospital. When you walked in through the front door in the morning you could smell a delicious aroma of what there was going to be for lunch. It was really laid back, it was a hot summer and the grounds were lovely and the ward I was on had a balcony.

The next hospital I went to was Daisy Hill. It was a bit nerve racking as I had worked there as an orderly and was now back as a trainee nurse. One of the first things I had to do was change a dressing, and it so happened that I knew the patient. The tutor who came to assess me had a white coat on, and I was very nervous. I remember it was St Valentine’s Day and it was snowing outside. During the assessment, I asked the patient if I was hurting him and said no. He exaggerated a bit, I thought he was going to say that’s the best dressing I have ever had done, but then they started talking about backing horses and the tutor must have liked a bet, and I got through that one.

The next place I went was 4 North Craigavon Coronary Care and after that to 4 South in Craigavon, and that’s where I did my medicine assessment. The assessment was going well, and I had changed the wrist bands on the patients, which shows they were legible to check against their records, and there was the ward sister observing, the tutor from the School of Nursing, a male staff nurse and myself. As I came to the last patient, I said to myself, keep your nerve and I said, ‘Mr so and so, you are number such and such’ and then there was a pause. The staff nurse said, ‘That’s not what I have here Mr McCorry.’ I said, ‘What have you got there?’ So, he says, ‘I have number such and such’, and I thought I will say what’s in the guidelines, and I said, ‘I’m taking no action in relation to the administration of this medication until a positive identification of the patient has been obtained.’ And, he started laughing and the ward sister, said, ‘alright I know, I can confirm who he is.’

I passed each assessment and although I had applied to be a State Enrolled Nurse, I did well enough in the exam, that they offered me the opportunity to be trained as a State Registered Nurse, which was a higher level of nursing. I was allowed to undertake a number of placements for the next six months to complete the training.

One of my placements was at the Mourne Hospital in Kilkeel, it was on the Newry Road into Kilkeel. I arrived on a rainy night in November, and I thought I was going to be based in the hospital building which was at the top of the yard, but it was the long Nissan hut that I was going to. Down one side were the beds for the male patients and down the other side was female and in the middle was the sister’s office or nurse’s station. It was very different to where I had nursed before, and there were no hoists, ribbed mattresses, and you had to lift patients in and out of baths. However, the nurse’s home was on site, and I really enjoyed the six months I spent working in the hospital.

I also had to undertake a placement in the community. I remember accompanying a nurse who was visiting a breast cancer patient in her own home to change her dressing. I had to stay outside while this was being done, as at that time there were very few male nurses.

I had passed my exam, but to complete my course, I also needed to undertake a further two weeks of nursing. I was thumbing a lift back to Newry from Kilkeel, and I was near the Alexian Brothers Nursing Home in Rostrevor. I saw one of the Brothers and asked were there any vacancies, and I got to cover for someone who was on two weeks holiday. At that time the patients were in ‘Nightingale

Wards’ with two rows of beds, which did not lend itself to privacy if someone was ill during the night.

I then started in Male Medical at Daisy Hill. There was a lot of similarities in the duties of a nurse and orderly. However administering medication, giving injections and writing reports were duties that an orderly would not have done, that I did as a nurse.

I then worked for a while in various hospitals in London, before working as a nurse in the Hospice in Newry. I was there for 14 years before retiring. You got to know people in the Hospice and their families and often the same people would come in to get their symptoms managed and go home again.

by John Davis

Before working in Daisy Hill Hospital I was employed in the Ardmore Hotel, but it was bombed on three occasions and the hotel closed. I was looking for another job and my original plan was to join the Merchant Navy, but in the meantime, I applied for a job as a Medical Orderly at Daisy Hill Hospital and soon got word to start.

The first ward I worked on was Male Medical and I was under the supervision of Hugh McCall who was a Ward Orderly. I then worked in Male Surgical for two years. There were four wards and a side ward, with four patients to a ward. Sister Quinn and Sister O’Callaghan oversaw the wards. Each morning I would come in to the ward and Sister Quinn would say ‘John have you all the patients out of bed and sitting on their chairs?’ I would say, ‘Yes Sister’, then race around and get all patients up.

Christmas time was a very special time for the patients, as we would decorate the wards and I remember decorating the corridor from one end to the other, from Male Surgical to Female Surgical. We provided entertainment for patients who could not go home, and I remember decorating a room with lights and taking in my hi-fi equipment for background music.

It was also a tradition to take a Christmas drink around to each patient, I don’t think you would be allowed to do that now. We also had our own side ward where we entertained staff from other departments. St Vincent de Paul would also visit, and they provided entertainment for the patients including singing and dancing.

I was then moved to Casualty where I spent five years. I remember Christmas Eve 1973, I was putting a splint on a patient and heard the fire horn and wondered what was happening. Then I heard the fire horn again, and the phones started to ring. At that time there was only one resuscitation area and two couches for patients in Casualty. A man I knew came in covered in blood and I raced toward him, and he said, ‘Don’t worry about me John, there are worse than me’. The ambulance arrived at the door of Casualty and I went out to the ambulance and was absolutely horrified by what I saw. There had been an explosion, and Casualty was absolutely packed with patients. It was an awful day, it changed everything, patients were sent home to free up beds.

There were numerous other incidents we had to deal with in Casualty including The Miami Showband Massacre, they said that was the day the music died. Mr Blundell was the Theatre Consultant Surgeon on that night and he operated on one of the band members and worked tirelessly through the night with his House Surgeon to save him.

Then there were further Troubles incidents including the murder of the Reavey brothers and the Kingsmill Massacre both in 1976 and the Narrow Water bomb in 1979. If we heard an explosion or something on the news, many of the hospital staff would come in on a voluntary basis to give a hand. You learned to cope with these incidents, and everyone knew their job and what to do. Those were dark days and I witnessed many terrible things, I nearly forget there was so many. There was no such thing as counselling for staff then, and we all dealt with it in our own way and by talking to each other.

It was important that we all stuck together and worked together as a good team, and for there to be a good social life to the hospital. We would run concerts and dances for the nurses and their families to keep morale up. We also did a lot of fundraising and raised money for the Diabetic Clinic and the Outpatient’s Department and there was a lot of good camaraderie among the staff.

Amidst all the gloom, there were funny incidents as well. I know it was the talk of the hospital the day I flew off to Belfast in a helicopter. It was a military Wessex helicopter based at Bessbrook, then Europe’s busiest heliport. We had to transfer a patient to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and I was getting on board helping with the stretcher and was in the tail section of the helicopter, and before I knew it we were airborne.

The nurse said to me ‘John you are on call for Casualty and Theatre’, and I looked out the door of the helicopter and I said, ‘Well, I am not jumping out 20 feet, let’s go flying’. We landed at Musgrave and from there we were transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital. We arrived in Casualty and settled in the patient. We waited in the doctor’s tearoom and there was one medical student there who said to us ‘well how’s things in Crazy Hill’ and I said, ‘we are still saving lives’. We would never let people run Daisy Hill down like that, as the staff there were excellent.

The doctors and nurses saved a lot of lives, including people who if they had had to travel to Craigavon Hospital, might not have survived. The staff were very experienced and up to date with their technology. They developed an expertise in dealing with trauma, such as gunshot wounds. We were very quick at setting up Casualty. We checked the machines every day, from the defibrillator to the ventilator to the packages (sterile dressings) to the intermediate trays that held instruments. Everything was left ready for an emergency, which could be anything from a road traffic accident, a bee sting to a Troubles related incident.

During my time in Daisy Hill Hospital I took a lot of photographs, recording the staff that worked there, and the events that took place. I always had a keen interest in photography and won first and second place in a 1989 hospital photography competition focusing on the environment of a hospital.

I retired in 2001 and enjoyed working in Daisy Hill Hospital, many of the permanent staff at that time had been there for thirty or forty years, and everyone knew each other, and we were like a big family.