Director of Midwifery, Gillian Morton said a fond farewell to colleagues from across the organisation who gathered to mark her retirement after more than 44 years with the NHS.
Gillian qualified as a nurse in 1981 and went on to qualify as a midwife in 1987. She loved midwifery with a passion and spent most of her early career working in the labour ward where she has fond memories of working with the ‘green team.’
She went on to work as a general manager and took on responsibility for women’s and children’s services as well as radiology. More recently, Gillian became NHS Forth Valley’s first Director of Midwifery and a key member of the senior NMAHP team.
Throughout her career, Gillian has worked with frontline staff to take forward a wide range of service changes and improvements. This included the merger of two local maternity units, the development of a new Forth Valley wide system of team midwifery and the creation of the new Women and Children’s Unit at Forth Valley Royal Hospital. Since also oversaw the establishment of an Alongside Midwifery Unit which provides more comfortable, attractive and less clinical birthing rooms and a Transitional Care service which allows mothers of babies with additional care needs to remain together, without the need for admission to the Neonatal Unit.
In addition, she had a significant leadership role, nationally and locally, in taking forward Best Start – the Scottish Government’s national plan for Maternity and Neonatal Care.
Gillian was recognised in the 2020 Queen’s New Year’s Honours receiving an MBE for services to healthcare. She also recently received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal College of Midwives in recognition of her outstanding contribution to midwifery services.
She was joined at her retirement event by colleagues she had worked with throughout her long and varied career who were keen to share their memories and stories from their time together.
Gillian also shared some of her personal experiences including an incident where she ended up driving off in a colleague’s car by accident and, more recently, when she became slightly delirious on a MS Teams calls due to the effects of Covid-19.
Paying tribute to the many colleagues who had supported her, Gillian highlighted the importance of teamwork, the vital role of support services such as labs, IT, pharmacy and administration staff, including the immense contribution made by PAs.
She described her career as joyous, wonderful and incredible and said she would always feel part of the women and children’s family. Wishing her colleagues well for the challenges which lie ahead she urged them to continue to support each other and remember to have fun.
Gillian also highlighted her love for her family and is immensely proud of her two sons, her eldest has followed her footsteps into the NHS and is now a qualified mental health nurse, and her four lovely grandchildren who fill her life with love and joy.
Although she received many lovely gifts, one of the more unusual and memorable has to be a placenta print scarf which she said she will treasure!
