Published on: 5th July 2021
The NHS at 73: Mrs Doubtfire, smoking in hospitals, GPs boiling urine, and the comradeship of NHS colleagues.
We caught up with Lynn Curran, a senior healthcare support worker based on South Ward, an adult mental health unit at Fairfield General.
At 73, Lynn was born just before the NHS was formed and has worked for it for 38 years. Here’s what she remembers:
How times have changed
“You used to be able to sit in your hospital bed and smoke freely. Even doctors would walk around smoking. Sometimes your GP would be smoking in their office when you turned up for an appointment.
Before they had dipsticks to carry out urine tests, GPs would have a Bunsen burner on their desk and they’d boil your urine up to do tests while you’re there with them."
Free healthcare makes a difference
"My brother is two years younger than me and he was one of the first to be born in Beech Mount, a maternity home in Harpurhey, and the free prescriptions were a massive help.
I remember getting scarlet fever when I was four and I was lucky I could get a prescription and have medicine at home. My sister had it a few years earlier and had to go into an isolation unit.
I’ve lived through Asian flu, scarlet fever, smog – they didn’t have the means to treat everything back then, but they would bend over backwards to do what they could."
The NHS has come a long way
"There was also a smallpox scare when I was 14, just into the 60s, and immunisation played a massive part in keeping people safe.
It’s amazing how far the NHS has come along, especially with things like fertility treatment and prosthetics.
My dad was a prisoner of war, who was blinded in Japan, and he used to go to a specialist hospital with other disabled soldiers. Some of the people who were amputees would have a hook or a leather ball on their arm, because that was all they could afford before.”
Working in the NHS
Lynn said the comradery and love for the job has kept her in the NHS until her age, with no thoughts of retiring any time soon:
“I’ve kept working ‘till my age because I like the job, I really do. My colleagues as well, they’re like a family and they keep me coming in no matter what. There’s a lot of comradeship.
I don’t feel I should pack it in any time soon. I’m not a grey-haired old lady, I have bright red hair and I keep them all [my colleagues] in line. They call me Mrs. Doubtfire!
The highlight is when you see somebody get well – or years later when you see that someone, who was really unwell, has recovered well and they shout to say hello and ask about you.”