Sister Kate

‘Running Casualty is really very simple: you have to love everybody, you have to listen to everybody; and when in doubt you just do what Sister O’Hanlon tells you.’

Mr William Rutherford, A & E Consultant

When Kate O'Hanlon started work at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, the people brought in to the A & E department were suffering from medical emergencies or were victims of road traffic accidents. So when the telephone rang on 26 June 1966 with the news that there had been a shooting in Malvern Street, no one in the department believed it. Soon such incidents became daily occurrences and the royal went on to treat more victims of the Troubles than any other hospital.

Kate spent sixteen years as sister in charge of A & E, working through many of the darkest days of the Troubles. Told with her trademark blend of warmth, compassion and humour, this is her fascinating and extraordinary story of nursing on the front line.