Hazel Margaret Finlay

Hazel Margaret Finlay, MB, BCh, BA, BAO, followed her mother, who trained as a nurse in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, into a caring profession. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1956 and spent her first year after qualifying in the Route Hospital, Ballymoney, where she worked with Mr Charles Irwin, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist. Subsequently, she took up posts in England—in the Kent and Sussex Hospital, Tunbridge Wells, learning much from Mr Henry MacNeil Symons, consultant ophthalmic surgeon—and in Wales, in general practice in Aberdare. She returned to Northern Ireland and became a partner in 1966 in a widely dispersed rural practice with surgeries in Brookeborough and Tempo to which she devoted 27 years of her professional life.

To her patients and colleagues, Hazel was known as a kind and conscientious medical practitioner who ministered meticulously to both the physical and emotional needs of those in her care. Her diagnostic skills often received high praise from consultants in Erne Hospital, Enniskillen, following patient referrals. The great affection and utmost regard in which she was held by colleagues and patients were very evident when she retired from general practice in 1993. Hazel then moved to Ballymoney, County Antrim, to be near her family.

She had a lifelong interest in music and particularly in gardening, and one of her greatest pleasures was sharing, quite literally, the fruits of her labours. She readily and generously shared her horticultural knowledge with her family, suggesting possibilities for the fledgling gardens of the younger members. Anyone could show her an ailing plant and, in her systematic way, she diagnosed, prescribed, and cured it.

She died at the Causeway Hospital, Coleraine, on 9 January 2011 after a very short illness, and is deeply missed by her two sisters, two brothers in law, four nieces, three nephews, five great-nephews, and one great-niece.