Three nurses in our children’s clinic, The Cove, are retiring after many years’ service to our hospital and the wider NHS.
Mary Haddow, a Paediatric Nurse Specialist; Linda Triggs, an Advanced Paediatric Nurse Practitioner; and Staff Nurse Bev Barnes have, between them, worked in the NHS for more than 130 years, many of them supporting our youngest patients across children’s services at the James Paget.
Bev started her enrolled nurse training at the Broadland School of Nursing in March 1979 and quickly realised that she wanted to work in paediatrics. She started her job on the Children’s Ward at the old general hospital in Great Yarmouth in 1981, shortly before the James Paget opened. When the new hospital was ready, the Children’s Ward was one of the first to move over to the new building and they were originally housed in what is now our neonatal and antenatal unit.
Bev says; “We were happy there but most of us missed the old general hospital and, looking back to those days, things seemed much more genteel, a happy place with a family atmosphere.”
There came a time when enrolled nurses had to do a conversion course in order to keep working in paediatrics and Bev recalls her fellow enrolled nurses supporting each other through this process. Over the years she has worked on the Neonatal Unit and with child patients in A&E before joining the team in The Cove, our children’s clinic.
“When I started work in The Cove, again I knew I had found a place where I would be very happy. My working life has been very good to me over the years and I have met some really lovely people including the children and families we have looked after. I have made friends who have been a big part of my life for many years that I am eternally grateful for. I will very much miss being part of the lovely work family in The Cove.”
Mary started her nursing career with adult nurse training at the Romford School for Nursing and Midwifery in Essex in 1988. She then did her paediatric nurse training at Great Ormond Street in 1994 and worked in London and Essex hospitals until 2002 when she and her family moved up to Norfolk. She worked at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital until 2005 when she saw a vacancy advertised at the James Paget and successfully applied.
She says; “We lived a lot closer to the James Paget at the time and this began a long career here in Paediatrics. I managed the enuresis (involuntary bedwetting) service which has changed a lot since then. At the start it was one clinic a month with just me – now our team of four do at least 14 clinics a week. I started the Uroflow service here so children and their families didn’t have to travel to Norwich for this simple non-invasive procedure. I joined the Children’s Community Nursing Service and spent many years in that wonderful team and we then started the first Paediatric weight management team here at the James Paget.
“My enuresis service joined forces with Linda Triggs’ constipation service, to become the Children's & Young Person's Healthy Bowel & Bladder service, about four years ago as we shared so many children and young families. The service in that time has changed beyond recognition and we have brought the waiting list down from 12 months to 5 weeks.
“I joined the endocrine team, which I absolutely loved, and worked full time covering Endocrine, Enuresis and Continence until semi-retiring last year. It’s been an amazing time here working with the best people, really professional, caring and great fun. However it is time to do other things - my husband and I and our two little rescue dogs ‘Fred’ & ‘Ruby’ are off travelling for a year in our van, UK, Ireland and Europe.”
Linda started her career with joint adult and children’s nurse training at Queen Mary’s Hospital for Children and St Heliers General Hospital in Carshalton between 1979 and 1983. She then worked on a neonatal surgical unit for six months before moving back home to Norfolk to work as a Children’s Staff Nurse on the Children and Young Peoples Unit at the James Paget. In those days you qualified as a nurse without a diploma or degree, but Linda progressed her career at the James Paget by obtaining a diploma in nursing and later gaining a Nurse Practitioner degree, including non-medical prescribing. Throughout her time at this hospital she has held a number of roles including Paediatric Sister and Matron, and helped support the Children’s Ward to achieve Charter Mark status in 1999.
Linda says; “After maternity leave in 1999-2000 to have my daughter Katie, who is now a qualified physiotherapist, in 2006 I married Russ and moved from management to a clinical role as Paediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP). This role involves working within the Paediatric medical team assessing, diagnosing and treating children who attend hospital with acute or chronic conditions. It also involves attending high risk newborn deliveries and carrying out newborn screening checks. One of the best parts of the job is working across disciplines with medical and nursing staff learning from each other by sharing knowledge and skills.”
While working as a PNP, Linda’s mum died in another hospital. It was a stressful experience as her mum had early dementia and relied on her to advocate for her, but Linda found that her value as a family carer was not always appreciated. This led her to carry out a patient and family centred care project within the James Paget with the findings published in the British Medical Journal in 2014. Linda also became a Family Carer Champion alongside her PNP role and helped to develop resources to support families of patients in our hospital.
She now describes herself as a serial retiree and party animal, having had at least three leaving dos in 2018 but returning to work at The Cove, and as part of our staff Bank.
We’d like to thank Mary, Linda and Bev for their long service and all their hard work to support our patients, and wish them well in their retirements.
