SOME of the UK’s oldest retired nurses have celebrated an official day honouring their profession.
Dozens of former nurses who live at Colten Care’s 21 homes in the south joined fellow residents and care team members to mark International Nurses Day.
Cards, gifts, cakes and good wishes were all exchanged to thank current nursing practitioners for all they do and to remember nursing from years gone by.
Nurses Day is celebrated each year on May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale who earned her famous title of ‘the Lady with the Lamp’ nursing wounded soldiers in the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856.
All Colten Care’s homes in Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and West Sussex are registered to provide professional nursing care and all take part in the annual celebration of Nurses Day by presenting gifts, cards and chocolates to the in-house nursing team.
Several homes, including Abbotts Barton in Winchester, Avon Reach in Mudeford and Belmore Lodge in Lymington, organised trips out so that residents could present gifts and cards to nurses working at local GP surgeries and hospitals.
In a further example of community outreach, a party from Woodpeckers in Brockenhurst, led by home manager Priya Joseph and companionship teamleader Jane Bunker, travelled to Oakhaven Hospice in Lymington with a cake specially baked for the nurses there.