Patient recalls time working at hospital
Elderly patients can find hospital disorientating but for Beryl Cursons it is home from home having spent most of her working life at Northwick Park as a ward assistant and office manager.
A foot injury saw the 86-year-old spend a week in hospital recently where she got a chance to see how much things has changed.
Beyrl said: “It made me realise how much I missed the staff and patients even after all these years.
“I’ve always been a people person and it was quite a wrench when I retired,” says the mother of three whose first job at the hospital was serving meals to patients with special dietary requirements.
She progressed to being a ward assistant on Hardy ward and was the first person in the hospital to introduce a signing out book meaning any patient file being taken off the ward had to recorded.
“One of my jobs was ensuring patients’ medical records were on hand for doctors during their rounds. It could be very stressful as some doctors had a habit of wandering off with the files and we had to track them down.”
It wasn’t all work at Northwick Park which had a lively social scene back in the day including a popular annual competition based on the TV show It’s a Knockout!
“We called ourselves the Hardy Wallbangers and I’m proud to say featured on the front of the staff magazine as the winners one year.”