Video: Christina O’Loughlin unveils the tram named in her honour
A tram named after the first student winner of the Nurse and Midwife of the Year award has been unveiled.
Christina O’Loughlin is a student nurse at the QMC, run by Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust which also runs City Hospital, and will graduate in December.
She was one of eight nurses to win this year’s Nurse and Midwife of the Year awards in May and went on to be named the overall winner after getting the most public votes.
Christina won the award after being nominated by the family of a patient she was looking after on the neurological ward at the QMC while on placement.
Neurology is the branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves and muscles – conditions include epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
She said: “I qualify in December and then I’ve got a job at NUH to go to three wards while I’m there.
“Then I will work as a qualified children’s nurse and a nurse is something I’ve always wanted to be ever since I was little.
“My mum’s a nurse and she inspired me – she used to work at the QMC but now she’s a district nurse out and about in the community.”
Chief nurse Mandie Sunderland said: “She’s the first student nurse winner of the award which makes it even more special and to have a tram named after you is incredibly exciting.
“Whenever the tram goes past at the QMC, all the nurses have a look to see if it’s our tram with our nurse on it.
“The impact Christina has had not just on the patients and their families but also what she is like to work with is reflected with the accolade.
“We’ve got nearly 5,000 nurses and midwives working at NUH and it’s such an accolade for Christina to win the award when it was voted for by colleagues and patients.”
The tram naming comes days after the new tram bridge named after Sir Peter Mansfield, founder of the MRI scanner, at the QMC was unveiled to mark its 40th birthday.
NET chief executive Adrian Wallace said: “Christina being voted as the Nurse and Midwife of the Year is an absolute fantastic accolade for somebody who is so young.
“The QMC is the only hospital in the country with a tram stop and, possibly in the world, that has one right on it’s doorstep.
“What the Trust recognised was the need to make it a lot more user friendly for getting their patients into the care environment they provide.”
