Mona Grey

Mona Elizabeth Clara Grey OBE FRCN (24 September 1910 – 27 May 2009) was a British nurse who was named Northern Ireland's first Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) in 1960.[1]

Biography

Grey was born and raised in Rawalpindi, British India (now Pakistan), the daughter of missionaries. Her mother died when she was six and so Grey and her elder sister, Trixie, attended Oakgrove boarding school near the Himalayas. The pair then went to the Church of England Missionary School in Bombay. There, her sister would die of turberculosis.[2]

She prepared to be a teacher at St. Bede's College, Shimla, where she graduated with honours and remained in India to work at Lawerence College in Murray Hills. In the 1930s she moved to London, looking for a teaching post, and in 1933 she took a job at Royal London, then known as London Hospital.[2] It was there that she decided to become a nurse[3]

Grey subsequently played a significant role in restructuring its health services in Northern Ireland. In 1960, she was appointed chief nursing officer in Northern Ireland, the first person to be appointed to the role, a post she held until 1975, when she retired. She helped establish a research chair in nursing at the University of Ulster, and received an honorary doctorate from the university in 1999. She died in Holywood, County Down on 27 May 2009 aged 98.[2]

Royal College of Nursing

Grey was the first salaried secretary of the Royal College of Nursing in Northern Ireland and served as leader of the college prior to her appointment as CNO. She was appointed an OBE in the 1952 New Year Honours. She was appointed Honorary Vice-President of the RCN in 1996 and Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in 2004.[4]

Awards/Honours

Legacies

References
  1. "Mona Grey: Health care advocate and Northern Ireland's first chief". The Independent. 5 August 2009. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  2. Graham, Margaret (13 February 2020). "Grey, Mona Elizabeth Clara". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  3. Dopson, Laurence (24 June 2009). "Obituary Mona Grey OBE FRCN SRN SCM Former chief nursing officer for Northern Ireland, 1910-2009". Nursing Standard. pp. 33–33. doi:10.7748/ns.23.42.33.s47. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  4. Ford, Steve (30 May 2009). "Tributes paid to Northern Ireland's first CNO". Nursing Times. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  5. Sarah Thewlis Good Citizen Award profile, suttonguardian.co.uk; accessed 5 July 2015.
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