Meet the Sunderland nurse taking retirement after devoting more than 50 years to caring for others

Award-winning nurse Dorothea Low, 67, will serve her last day in the role at the end of this month, having started as a cadet nurse at what was the city’s general hospital - now Sunderland Royal – in 1969 after leaving Broadway School.

It will end with her facing one of her toughest tasks, staying on in her job to help Wearsiders through the coronavirus pandemic as she worked out in its community.

After her training, which started in 1971 through Monkwearmouth College, she became a registered nurse and spent time learning on the wards before moving to Leeds to become a midwife.

She had a job lined up in Texas when she found out her father was unwell with cancer and instead headed back to Sunderland, going on to spent time working in for a nursing agency, which took her into a boys boarding school and industrial nursing, and then went on to orthopaedic theatres as a sister.

After she got married to Alan, now 64, she decided to fulfil the dream of working abroad and applied for a job in the Middle East with the British Forces, continuing to work in the same field in Oman as an officer.

She said: “It was just a great experience, living in another culture and we met a lot of interesting and dynamic people and we’ve kept in touch with them over the years.”

When she was pregnant with son Graham, now 32, they moved back to Wearside, and also had another son Adam, now, 27, with the couple becoming grandparents as they welcomed Graham’s children, Max, eight, and Jessica, six.

Since her boys were young, she has worked in the community, first in Pallion, helped to set up the overnight service and on to the recovery-at-home team, most recently based with South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust’s base on Leechmere Industrial Estate.

It has been running for 14 years and works with patients to help them manage their illnesses outside of a hospital ward.

"I was to retire in June, that was my 50 years up, but I re-registered when coronavirus came and I just really felt that I would have been running away,” said Dorothea, who won the Community Nurse of the Year title in the Echo’s Best of Health Awards in 2018.

"I discussed it with Graham, Adam and my husband first, but I thought as a nurse, this is what I need to do.

“It has been hard and I hope we never see a pandemic like this again.

"I’ve had lots of experiences over the 50 years and it’s been a rewarding and worthwhile journey.

"If I could, I would do it all over again and if you like hard work – because it is hard work – then it is a great career.”

Dorothea hopes to hold a celebration to mark her retirement once it is safe for people to gather again.

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