1. NORA Wattie wanted to improve the lot of Glasgow’s poorest people – and she knew that to do it, she needed to improve their health. This pioneer of social medicine was, for 31 years, principal officer of health for maternity and child welfare in the city. The service she set up and ran, with its antenatal care and health visitor system, gained national and international recognition.
2. In 1939, Nora - who was crowned Evening Times Scotswoman of the Year in 1964 - set up a series of diptheria immunisation clinics in Glasgow, a programme that led to the elimination of the disease locally.
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3. Nora established the Glenfarg Centre, one of the first multidisciplinary units for assessing people with disabilities. She was also in charge of the city’s home help and home nursing services - she set up a home help department to help mothers returning home after childbirth and established short stay homes for children in need of convalescence, or whose mothers needed attention in hospital. She was a member of a string of associations, including the General Midwives Board.
4. Her obituary in the British Medical Journal, included a note on her kind approach to staff. “On first acquaintance Nora Wattie, who had a national reputation in child welfare, was somewhat intimidating, but one soon realised what a kindly interest she took in her staff. She foresaw change coming and made sure her staff were equipped to take advantage of it by sending them on appropriate courses. She loved to entertain her staff either in the Kelvin Club or in her home, where her housekeeper provided splendid Scottish food.”
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5. Nora’s last public duty was to open a health exhibition in Glasgow in 1990 where she was pictured giving a spoonful of cod liver oil to Sir Thomas Thomson, chairman of Greater Glasgow Health Board.
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