Tribute to former Wellington Hospital principal nurse.NURSES, FRIENDS and family from all over the country turned out to honour Wellington Hospital's former principal nurse, Gloria Grattan, at her funeral in Wellington last month. Grattan died on December 31 after a short illness, aged 74. Grattan graduated from the Auckland School of Nursing in 1951. She worked in rural hospitals in Northland north·land also North·land n. A region in the north of a country or an area. north  land , New South Wales New South Wales, state (1991 pop. 5,164,549), 309,443 sq mi (801,457 sq km), SE Australia. It is bounded on the E by the Pacific Ocean. Sydney is the capital. The other principal urban centers are Newcastle, Wagga Wagga, Lismore, Wollongong, and Broken Hill. and Queensland
before returning as ward sister to Green Lane Hospital, where she
pioneered nursing care in the newly established intensive care unit.
After five years as nurse adviser in the Department of Health, Grattan was appointed principal nurse at Wellington Hospital Wellington Hospital is Wellington, New Zealand's main hospital located in the suburb of Newtown on Riddiford Street. It is the main hospital run by Capital & Coast District Health Board (C&CDHB), the others including Kapiti Helath Centre, Kenepuru Hospital and Porirua Hospital the in 1971. This was a time of great change as nursing education progressively moved from the hospital to polytechnics. Grattan enabled the hospital school, her staff and students in both the old and new systems to feel equally valued. Last year, Massey University Massey University (Māori: Te Kunenga ki Purehuroa) is New Zealand's largest university with approximately 40,000 students. It has campuses in Palmerston North (sites at Turitea and Hokowhitu), Wellington (in the suburb of Mt Cook) and presented her with a citation acknowledging her leadership, mentorship and inspiration to that generation of nurses. Grattan cared for her staff. Her office door was always open to anyone needing help to deal with a problem or just to have someone to listen. There were occasions when a student nurse visited her office with a letter of resignation--"the going was too tough"--eventually returning to the ward, the letter in Grattan's waste paper basket, it was a proud moment when Grattan later pinned the medal on the former student's new staff nurse uniform. After 17 years, Grattan retired from Wellington Hospital but not from work. She was the first chairperson of the Mary Potter Mary Potter is the foundress of the "Little Company of Mary Sisters" in 1877. She has a Nottingham Tram named after her for this reason. This was done after she was nominated in a BBC poll. She died in 1913. Hospice Foundation and it was largely due to her hard work that the $6.3 million facility was completed in 1990. She was voted inaugural Wellingtonian of the Year in 1989 and, more recently, was awarded the Queen's Service Medal A service medal is a military award generally of the lowest degree. A service medal is awarded to a member of the military who joins the military, or is already serving, during a designated time period. for her services to nursing and the community. She had already received the Pope John Paul Pope John Paul is the name of two Popes of the Roman Catholic Church:
A few months ago, Grattan was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She confided in only a few trusted friends and went about preparing for her death with the same meticulous Care and attention to de tail as she had displayed during her nursing career. She died in the hospice she helped build on New Year's Eve. |
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