Memorial to top nurse who moved to area

A MEMORIAL service is planned in Londonderry later his month for a nurse who became the first matron of Altnagelvin Hospital on the city’s outskirts.

At the close of her career, Betty Boyce retired to Bryansford. She died in September at the age of 96 and her funeral service in the village’s parish church was attended by nearly 150 relatives, friends and former colleagues.

Great grand-daughter of a Lord Mayor of Dublin, Miss Boyce was born at Dalkey, Co. Dublin. She served as a member of St. John’s Commandery of Ards and was a Dame of Grace in that order, which is organising the memorial service at Glendermott parish church on Wednesday, November 21.

As matron of the first hospital to be built in the United Kingdom after the Second World War and with a bungalow in the hospital grounds, Miss Boyce fulfilled her role in a manner remembered as “firm but fair”. She also served as a member of the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority, her contribution to nursing being recognised in the form of an OBE.

The first patient at Altnagelvin was registered in February 1960 and, despite advancing years, Miss Boyce was back there half a century later to help mark the hospital’s 50th anniversary.

She began her retirement with a six-month world tour, spending Easter in Jerusalem. At Bryansford, Miss Boyce was a long-serving president of Slievenaman Women’s Institute and remained a car driver until the age of 90.