When Sandra Hunter retired recently after an incredible 43 years of service, she said goodbye to a lifetime of caring for children which encompassed being a house mother in a children’s home, a staff nurse on a children’s ward, a health visitor and an adviser and manager in NHS Forth Valley’s Child Protection Department.
Her career saw employment with the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (RSSPCC), before she joined the NHS where she has worked in Scotland, England and the Isle of Man before returning to Scotland in 2001 after nine years on the island.
She joined NHS Forth Valley as a health visitor and furthered her academic experience by achieving qualifications in child protection. This, she said, had brought her back full circle to where she started with the RSSPCC but with the additional nursing skills and focus on the health and wellbeing of children and their families in the Child Protection Department.
Sandra, who is unsure what it will be like to no longer have the responsibility of being a nurse, is looking forward to spending more time with her husband, two daughters and her mother. One of her daughters is a qualified nurse and her mother was a children’s nurse in Edinburgh for over 30 years so nursing definitely runs in the family.
