AS the NHS celebrates its 70th birthday, celebrations and events will be taking place across Essex and the wider country. Today we are bringing you a Your Life special to mark the milestone of the organisation that today treats a staggering one million patients every 36 hours..

WE often look back in a haze of rose-tinted nostalgia and ponder on how things were so much better in the good old days.

And some things were, undoubtedly.

When it comes to the NHS so many things have changed. Thanks to this amazing organisation which is now celebrating its 70th anniversary, we have all but eradicated diseases such as polio and diphtheria, and pioneered new treatments such as the world’s first liver, heart and lung transplant.

In more recent times, we have seen innovations like mechanical thrombectomy to improve stroke survival, bionic eyes to restore sight, and surgical breakthroughs such as hand transplants.

Of course it’s not perfect. It never could be. But some problems facing the NHS today - such as staff shortages - have always been around, as an Echo story from 1978 shows.

The article, dug out from our archives, demonstrates how the health service has a long history of grappling with shortages of staff and resources.

It describes how George Royle, the head of Orsett Hospital’s Nursing School, was off to Ireland in a bid to recruit a new swathe of nurses to Basildon.

“When he flies to Ireland he’ll be looking for angels rather than leprechauns,” said the article.

Mr Royle, described as a ‘dapper Welshman’ in the Echo story was trying to save Orsett’s nurse training programme for the next year.

He had so few students on the roll that only 16 of the 80 places had been filled.

“The course will have to be scrapped unless he can give it a life saving transfusion of Irish blood,” read the story.

The shortage was put down to two factors - local women didn’t want to go into the profession and Basildon just wasn’t an attractive place for nurses to relocate to in the late Seventies.

“Youngsters in Basildon don’t want to know about nursing and would-be students don’t want to know about Basildon,” the article told.

Fortunately Mr Royale was able to recruit new blood into the training scheme and over the years nurses in south Essex have been responsible for saving literally hundreds of thousands of lives.

Featuring in the 1978 article was Carol Collin - today a senior sister on Horndon ward at Basildon Hospital, which cares for patients who have had elective (planned) trauma and orthopaedic surgery.

She has been a nurse since she was just out of school and has witnessed with her own eyes how the job and working conditions have changed over the decades.

Echo: Nurses needs - the Echo article from November 1978 which tells of the nursing crisis locally. Carol, then aged 19 is featured in main the photograph.

Carol became a cadet nurse at the age of 16 in 1975. She was born in south London and moved to Benfleet when she was 11.

She said: “I was earning £15 a week. The two year course combined learning in college – including parent craft and hygiene – with experience in hospital, but we weren’t allowed on the wards until we were 17, we could only go areas like medical records. I remember we wore bright yellow uniforms! At 17 you could go on the wards, arranging flowers, talk to elderly patients, making beds. I knew it was definitely what I wanted to do. I had started working weekends when I was 13 in an old people’s home. I really loved patient interaction and I still do.”

Carol then went to train at Orsett Nursing School in 1977. She remembered: “First we trained in the school of nursing, then we went on to the wards, moving round to get varied experience.

“I liked being in a hospital, it seemed like my second home. We were well supervised by ward nursing officers - we were scared of some of them. I think it is good to have a little bit of fear – I want to be approachable for my staff but it is about getting the balance right – firm but fair.

“You had to take officers around to every patient’s bed and say what the diagnosis and plan for care was. Some people used to hide!

“I qualified as a state registered nurse in 1980 aged 21, and worked on Linford ward which is also an orthopaedic ward.

“I have worked in this hospital nearly all my career, apart from a period when my children were small and I worked nights for five years in a care home. After that I came back to Basildon Hospital on another orthopaedic ward – Linford, and continued working night shifts so I could see more of my children. I then joined the community orthopaedic team, going out to visit people who had had joint replacements. After seven years I missed the wards and I have now been on Horndon ward for the past 17 years.

“The story in the Echo from 40 years ago just goes to show you can look back with nostalgia at the past but it’s not always as you thought.

“For a few years I have thought that shortages of nurses are a new development but it’s obviously not – you think there were no problems in the past but there always were.

“But to me it shows what a good thing the NHS is – it will never be perfect, we could always do more, but there are more people living better thanks to our health service.

“One reason I like working in orthopaedics is seeing people who have come to hospital in pain, then after surgery there is a massive improvement in their lives, and they can do things again they had had to stop, like go for nice long walks and generally be involved in life again.

“I know that as nurses we are under pressure, but after all this time in this job the basic thing hasn’t changed - I still enjoy patient contact as much as ever, we get wonderful feedback from our patients and I would really miss not working on a ward. I am lucky to work with such a wonderful team. I feel like the hospital is my second home because of the amount of time I’ve spent here over the years.”

Patient, Mrs Brenda Spensley aged 79, from Orsett, was recently cared for on Horndon ward following an operation on her ankle after a fall. She echoes Carol’s sentiments: She said: “The staff are angels. Everyone here gets on so well together – it’s a lovely thing to see people of different nationalities working together - they all help each other and are so dedicated and happy in their work.

It sums up everything that is good about our NHS.”