Mary Harraghy, 67, Magherafelt, Co Londonderry
As I was pegging clothes out on the line, the phone rang. ‘Mary, we’re short-staffed,’ my boss said. ‘Can you do the night shift?’
It was September 2011 and I was a staff nurse at Maine Nursing Home, for patients with learning disabilities, in Randalstown, Co Antrim.
I’d been nursing 40 years, had worked in hospitals and clinics before the care sector.
It’d been tough, juggling long shifts with raising my family.
But now my kids Nuala, then 27, and Gerrard, 25, were grown-up, I had a lot more flexibility.
‘Of course,’ I told my boss.
It was just me and a care assistant on duty that night, doing hourly checks on each of the residents. Everything was going smoothly.
Until 6am, when the…
