A casual conversation in a supermarket 52 years ago set Anita Steel on a path she has never left.
Working at Tesco as a 17-year-old mum, she was told to “give working in the NHS a go” — advice that turned into a career spanning more than half a century.
Anita, who recently turned 70, still works as a scrub practitioner in the operating theatres at Morriston Hospital, assisting surgeons by preparing instruments and keeping strict sterile conditions to protect patients.
She has served what is now Swansea Bay University Health Board for 52 years — and is still counting.
Her training, completed in 1977, ended with a brush with royalty.
As it was a Jubilee year, her certificate was presented at a special ceremony in Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall by the future King, then Prince Charles.
“I was just 18 when I started my training, and when I completed that I was handed my certificate by Prince Charles. It was quite surreal meeting him,” she said.
She recalls him asking what she did. When she explained she worked in theatre recovery, waking patients after surgery, his reply caught her off guard.
“He replied ‘oh and how do you do that? With a kiss?’ which was quite funny,” she said.
In the decades since, Anita has seen healthcare transformed — from early surgical techniques to keyhole surgery and robotics, the arrival of computers, and the strain of the covid pandemic.
After the birth of her second daughter in 1979, she worked night shifts for 41 years, switching to days during covid when her health was affected by the lung condition COPD.
Now working 20 hours a week, she says it is the patients and her colleagues that have kept her there.
“The reason I have continued to work here is my dedication to patients and working alongside colleagues who I consider life-long friends,” she said.
“Working in a hospital environment is a pressurised setting, but we all work well together and keep our morale up as best as we can.”
She credits her mother as her biggest role model. “For me, the best thing about my job is caring for people. That means a lot to me,” she said.
Caring, she says, runs in the family — her two granddaughters work for the health board, and one of her daughters manages a nursing home.
“Fifty two years is obviously a very long time to work in the same place. I guess it’s pretty rare these days,” she said. “But from the day I started I did see myself working a long time here.”
Jonathan Gates, head of nursing for surgery, said Anita had been “a constant” through every decade of change.
He said that to turn 70 and still be working, doing what she had done for over half a century, was “nothing short of remarkable”, and praised her “unwavering commitment, professionalism and compassion”.
“Anita is not just a colleague, she is part of the fabric of Morriston Theatres,” he said.
