SYLVIA Parsons, who left school to become a cadet nurse at 16, has just retired from Minehead Hospital – after 55 years in the National Health Service.
Sylvia, of Dunster, was a full-time community psychiatric nurse at the hospital’s Barnfield Unit for mental health patients until last June 28.
As well as being care co-ordinator, with 48 clients in her case load, she also co-ran the clinic responsible for injections for people with major mental health problems – and managed to find time to bake renowned cakes every week, with the proceeds going to charity.
Sylvia has worked at Minehead since 1984, when she saw an advertisement in the Free Press and applied for a job to help open the (then) new mental health day hospital, Baytree House.
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Her husband George and daughter Emma Salter were among those at a retirement celebration at the hospital.
Buy tomorrow’s (July 6) Free Press to read the full feature.