Training as a Nurse in the 1970's

Training to be a nurse in the 1970's Sean McCorry had no idea that his journey would last 42 years. Sean tells his story below.

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 29^th 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 bandages on. 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 23^rd June 1976, which was a really hot day. I passed the exam and commenced training on 7^th 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. 

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. 

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. 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 in 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 fourteen 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 Sean McCorry 

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