Retired nurse sewing scrubs for NHS staff

Working as part of the Dundonald Darners group, Maggie Murphy’s first batch of scrubs is already in use at the Ulster Hospital, helping to protect high-risk, immuno-compromised cardiac and cancer patients, and the staff caring for them.

Maggie, who worked as a MacMillan palliative care specialist nurse at the Ulster Hospital until her retirement, had wanted to return to nursing to offer bereavement support to families affected by the pandemic but at 73, her family felt it was too dangerous, so she has been making scrubs instead - her contribution to the effort.

Maggie said: ‘‘When you’re a nurse, you’re always a nurse, whether you are retired or not and I just thought I need to do something.’’

She added: ‘‘I know I am doing something to help my colleagues. I used to be the chemotherapy sister in Belvoir Park Hospital before it closed. All my colleagues from there are over at the Cancer Centre at the City Hospital and they are all struggling because a lot of them have been moved to the Tower Block. It’s just an awful situation.’’

And as warden of St Dorothea’s Church, Gilnahirk, Maggie has begun ringing the church bell at 8pm on Thursdays to show gratitude for frontline workers.

But Maggie’s kindness reaches beyond Northern Ireland. By helping organise Christian Aid’s sponsored walking and cycling events over many years, she has raised funds to end poverty in some of the poorest countries in the world.

Christian Aid Ireland chief executive Rosamond Bennett praised Maggie: “Whether nursing those at the end of life, making scrubs to reduce infection risk to patients and their carers, or bringing hope to the world’s poorest, we think you’ll agree that this very special lady is just ‘sew, sew’ kind.”

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