Addenbrookes nurses with combined service of nearly 90 years celebrate 75th birthday of the NHS
Watch a report by ITV News Anglia's Raveena Ghattaura
Two nurses with a combined total of nearly 90 years service are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the NHS.
Shirley Fordham and Patricia Antill both work at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge - and they both told ITV News Anglia that NHS nursing is the best job in the world.
Mrs Fordham started working at Addenbrooke's hospital in 1976, and is still there more than five decades later.
She told ITV News Anglia that ward D6 feels like home to her, and the patients she cares for are like an extended family.
She said: "I get emotional. I lost my husband at the end of 2021. He was in this hospital with a brain tumour and he told me to give up. I said I can't. "I want to be here as long as my hips and knees will take it. "I want to be here because I care. I care about everybody and everything.
"Being a nurse, being part of healthcare, for me, is the best job. The experts can run the country but leave me to do what I know I can do best."
Mrs Fordham's colleague, Patricia Antill, has been in her nursing job at Addenbrooke's for 40 years.
On Friday June 7- she'll meet up with the class of 1983 in Cambridge - a chance to reunite with former colleagues who she trained with all those years ago.
Ms Antill said: "I knew from the age of 7 that I wanted to be a nurse and I was determined that's what I was going to be.
"As soon as I was old enough to get in, I was knocking the door."
"I know there's been a lot of pressure lately and a lot of people talking about are we still gonna have a NHS in so many years.
"I just really really hope that we will and I think we need to fight for it."
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