27 May 2009

Nurses move on after 40 years at Ninewells facility

Photo opportunity: 4pm to 6pm, Thursday May 28th
Nursing Teaching Block,
Ninewells campus

Student nurses and midwives at the University of Dundee will this week say goodbye to the building that has been their base for the last 40 years.

The teaching block at Ninewells has been in use since it was opened in May 1969 in the guise of what was then Dundee College of Nursing and Midwifery. The College was the first building on the Ninewells site.

Various mergers of nurse education facilities have seen the College evolve into the Tayside Campus of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Dundee.

Now students are to receive their theory training at the city campus of the University, where they will occupy much of the space in the Dalhousie Building, the major £15million teaching facility opened by Her Majesty The Queen in 2007.

'I am sure there will be many people with fond memories of their time at the Ninewells site, which has seen tens of thousands of trainee nurses pass through its doors,' said Professor Margaret Smith, Dean of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University.

'There is always a degree of sadness at leaving a building after so long, but we are able to offer our students fantastic facilities at the city campus, where the School is now more fully integrated into the everyday life of the University.'

'This move means that instead of being spread across three different campuses, the School now occupies two sites - the city campus and our Fife campus in Kirkcaldy.'

The closure of the building will be marked with a reception attended by around 80 staff and students, past and present. These will include Dr John Drummond, a former Vice-Principal of the then Tayside College of Nursing and Midwifery.

The University has around 800 undergraduate nurses being taught in Dundee, and a further 400 at the Kirkcaldy campus.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk