Pamela Joy Spry AM (10 December 1924 – 8 January 2021) was an Australian nurse and Army Officer. She was director of nursing at the Royal Adelaide Hospital from 1973 to 1984.
Pamela Joy Spry | |
|---|---|
 Pamela Joy Spry, from a 1947 class photo | |
| Born | 10 December 1924 Adelaide |
| Died | 8 January 2021 (aged 96) Adelaide |
| Occupation | Nurse |
Early life edit
Spry was born in Adelaide, and trained as a nurse at the Royal Adelaide Hospital from 1945 to 1947.[1][2] She also had midwifery training in Sydney.[3]
Career edit
Spry worked at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide as a young woman.[3][4] She was Director of Nursing at the Royal Adelaide Hospital from 1973 to 1984. Among the policies advanced during her tenure as director, nurses were no longer required to wear the traditional nurse's cap or white stockings while on duty; nurses in residence were no longer required to register their absences; and nurses were encouraged and supported to earn college degrees in their field.[5] "I wanted nurses to no longer be seen by anyone as 'handmaidens' to the doctors but to begin to become their equal," she later recalled.[6] Spry served on the South Australia Health Commission, the education committee of the Nurses' Board, and the South Australian branch of the Australian Nursing Federation.[1]
Spry achieved the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps in 1955.[7] In 1988, she became a member of the Order of Australia (AM), in the general division.[8] She gave an oral history interview to the J. D. Somerville Oral History Collection at the State Library of South Australia in 1989.[3]
Personal life edit
Spry used a wheelchair in her later years.[6] She died in 2021, aged 96 years, in Adelaide.[5]
References edit
- ^ a b Secomb, Robin; National Foundation for Australian Women. "Spry, Pamela Joy". The Australian Women's Register. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
- ^ "Nurses' Examination Results". Advertiser. 28 November 1947. Retrieved 5 December 2021 – via Trove.
- ^ a b c Durdin, Joan (1989). "Interview with Pamela Joy Spry [sound recording]". The Australian Women's Register. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
- ^ Harding, Philip (February 2021). "Editor's Letter" (PDF). MedicSA. 34: 6.
- ^ a b "Pamela J Spry AM". Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation SA Branch. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
- ^ a b "Let the champions of our past inspire our future". Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation SA Branch. 28 November 2019. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
- ^ "Australian Military Forces; Central Command". Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. 10 November 1955. Retrieved 5 December 2021 – via Trove.
- ^ "Australia Day Honours List". The Canberra Times. 26 January 1988. p. 11. Retrieved 4 December 2021 – via Trove.
External links edit
- Pamela Spry's graduation medal from the Royal Adelaide Hospital, 1947; in the collection of the Health Museum of South Australia
- A photograph of Brenda Mangelsday, Pamela Spry and Lew Barrett, taken about 2000; in the collection of the Health Museum of South Australia