Staff nurse Janet Phillips, Sully- Australia

Staff nurse Janet Phillips worked in Sully during the 1970s.  She remembers it as a very happy period of her life and it was there that she met  and married Dr Keith Wong. Later they moved to New Zealand.

Tragically he died of cancer while only 45 years of age  and Janet brought his ashes back to Sully where they are scattered in the grounds within view of his old cardiac unit.

“I was 28 in the first one photo taken in the National Heart Hospital, London where I worked in the pediatric cardiac unit and I am 59 in the second photo – taken in Australia where I live now.

“ It must be the must be the good Welsh genes!!”

Janet says:

"I trained as a nurse at Llandough Hospital and visited Sully Hospital during my training. I knew that I wanted to work there so when I qualified in 1974, after my obligatory 6 months as a junior staff nurse at Llandough, I applied for a position at Sully.

“I started there on Powys Ward.. the thoracic medical ward...48 beds. This is where I met Dr. Foreman. He was a lovely man. I remember him telling me that he came from Takapuna. It meant very little to me at the time but later on I met and married a New Zealand cardiology registrar, Dr Keith Wong who came to Sully.

He was registrar to Dr Davies from 1976-78.

Later we went to live in New Zealand, and I visited Takapuna and thought of Dr.Foreman.

I was asked to transfer to the cardiology ward Morgannwg as a senior staff nurse and there I spent some of the happiest years of nursing career. There was an enormous camaraderie amongst the staff. Dr LG Davies was the senior cardiologist and he was an amazing clinician and a modest and charming man.

I lived in the nurses’ home while I worked at Sully. I was always very aware how fortunate I was to live somewhere where I woke up to the sound of the sea and the birds every morning. The ward patients also had this. What a wonderful place.

I left Sully in 1978 and moved to London and then to New Zealand. My husband became a consultant cardiologist in Christchurch. NZ.

“Sadly, at the early age of 45, he died after a short and sharp battle with cancer. I met him at Sully and completed the circle by bringing his ashes back to scatter in the grounds of Sully Hospital, within view of the old cardiac catheter suite where he spent so much of his time.

Sully Hospital will always remain in my memories.

It was indeed a very happy hospital. Everyone knew everyone (and what they were up to!).

In 2007 Janet moved to  Kalgoorlie, western Australia where she now lives  with her second husband who works as an anaesthetist.  And she has retired from nursing.

Meanwhile her children still live in the UK and her daughter lives in Barry.
Janet says:" I return regularly to visit them."

Thank you Janet for sharing your story with us.