Nurse, 80, celebrates 60 years in the NHS — and has no plans to retire

Nurse, 80, celebrates 60 years in the NHS — and has no plans to retire Vibeke Karner Nicklin, who turned 80 last week, came to the UK from Denmark in the 1960s — and has since dedicated her life to working in the National Health Service A nurse who came to the UK as a teenager for a one-year adventure is now celebrating 60 years in the NHS. Vibeke Karner Nicklin, 80, has been a nurse at several hospitals for six decades and his seen healthcare change hugely during this period. She had originally came to England from her native Denmark in 1964 with the intention to be an au pair for one year but, having met her now husband Roger, she decided to stay in the country. Vibeke, who now lives in Birkenhead, Merseyside, said: "I wanted to be a nurse, and in Denmark they like you to have a year out where you don’t live at home so you get used to taking orders and your parents don’t do everything for you. A lot of people at the time went abroad and were au pair girls. It was sort of an adventure at the same time as waiting till you could start your training. "It feels like a long time because I’ve never done anything else, but it feels good, and I still enjoy it. I mean, there’s ups and downs, but I’ve never sat at home and thought, ‘Oh god, I’m going to work tonight, I don’t want to go’. So I am so lucky because I can’t think of anything worse than that. That must be awful." The mum of two, who has spent the last 40 years working at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside, always hoped to become a nurse. She spent a year working as an au pair in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, before beginning her nursing training at Amersham General Hospital in 1965. She told the Liverpool Echo: "I wanted to be a nurse, and in Denmark they like you to have a year out where you don’t live at home so you get used to taking orders and your parents don’t do everything for you. A lot of people at the time went abroad and were au pair girls. It was sort of an adventure at the same time as waiting till you could start your training." Vibeke's friend went on to become an au pair for the sister of the man, who would eventually become Vibeke's husband, Roger Nicklin. He and Vibeke moved to Merseyside in 1966 and Vibeke soon completed her training and forged her career in nursing with the NHS. But having arrived in England with limited English, Vibeke had to adapt to a new country while learning the skills needed to care for patients. She said: "I wasn’t fluent when I first arrived in the country, but my English very much improved in that year that I was an au pair. My husband, his sister, and her husband were fantastic. "We spent a lot of time together, and they were very good when we were having a conversation because if I didn’t understand something, they would stop the conversation and explain. It was a tremendous help." However, one of the biggest setbacks came during her nursing training, when an administrative mistake meant she had to start again after believing she had successfully transferred from Amersham to Clatterbridge Hospital. Vibeke had already completed a year of training when she moved to Wirral, only to be told that she would have to begin the course again. Her training ultimately took four years instead of the three she had expected. She said: “I’d applied to transfer to Clatterbridge and I got a letter to confirm that so I moved up here and did a month or two carrying on my training but then the head of nursing at the time called me in and said, ‘I’m awfully sorry i read the letter wrong you haven’t had a transfer, you have to start all over again. "I was so upset, but when you're 18, you're not taking on the establishment, are you? I felt like I couldn’t stand up and say something or do anything about it but that was a long, long time ago now." After marrying Roger in Denmark on August 1, 1970, the couple moved to Reading, where she worked at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. They later moved to Blackburn, Lancashire, where she worked at Blackburn Royal Infirmary before returning to Clatterbridge around 1980. She eventually moved to Arrowe Park after staff from Clatterbridge were transferred following the closure of the hospital's old buildings. Over the years, she has witnessed extraordinary changes in how hospitals operate and how patients are treated. She said: “Nursing has changed in every way you can imagine. In the old days, we looked like nurses. We looked crisp, clean, and disciplined. But I think the biggest change is infection control. We didn’t wear gloves, so when you cleaned somebody, you didn’t have gloves on, which sounds ridiculous. It would never happen today. Gloves are worn for everything now. Also everything is sterizlied these days. We packed drums for cotton wool and boiled up needles and reused them.” Sterilisation and modern infection-control practices have transformed the way care is delivered, while advances in surgery mean patients can often return home far sooner than they once would have. Vibeke added that patients recovering from an appendix operation would once have stayed in hospital for around a week, whereas some can now go home the same day following keyhole surgery. But she believes the pressure on hospitals has grown, with patients often more seriously ill and beds in increasingly short supply. She said: “The ward I'm on, we are always full. We're literally sending one patient home, and the bed is full within half an hour. “We were never short of beds like we are now. When people come into A&E these days, it’s a nightmare. I feel sorry for the patients, and I’m not blaming anybody for that. "There just isn’t the capacity. I think people are far more ill than they used to be. People used to stay in hospital for much longer after a surgery.” Despite the frustrations, Vibeke said she has no plans to retire and feels fortunate to still be in good health, and has never dreaded going to work. She said: “I’ve never wanted to be anything else for as long as I can remember. It was sort of always understood that I would be a nurse. You meet so many different people, and I obviously enjoy looking after people. "I know it’s cliché, but I don’t feel 80. I’m lucky I’ve got my health and everything else. I don’t find it hard work to go to work. People keep saying to me, ‘Oh, when do you want to retire?’ I'm like, ‘when I've had enough!" Vibeke and Roger, who will turn 80 himself in November, have two daughters, Heidi, 53, and Rebekka, 50, and as they prepare to celebrate her milestone birthday, Vibeke said she is looking forward to marking the occasion with friends, family, and former colleagues.