For the past seven years, Ms McIntyre worked at Liberty Avenue Maternal and Child Health Centre in Rowville, a job which she says was a natural progression from her training. She had also worked in Boronia and The Basin.

"It's a wonderful job," Ms McIntyre said. "It's supporting families and watching them grow, from their first child to sometimes their fifth or sixth."

Ms McIntyre said she was happy to have been a nurse for Knox Council. "We've got a super team of nurses at Knox. It's a very good council to work for and we are very well looked after professionally."

She said every day was different as a nurse. "I started nursing when I was 17, and that's all I've ever done.

Ms McIntyre said most nurses of her era were in the profession for the long run. "When I started, I did an apprenticeship. You weren't a nurse unless you wanted to be a nurse."

While Ms McIntyre would not say what the future held, she said, "You get to a point in your life and you say, 'This is all I've ever done', and you want to make some changes."

Ms McIntyre said she was unsure of how many people she had seen in her career as a nurse, but she was now seeing the children of people she had seen years ago. "Now I'm seeing young babies whose parents were my babies 20-odd years ago, so that's exciting."

She said there had been huge changes in nursing. "When we first started, people could drop into the health centre. They then changed it to appointments, which took some pressure off nurses.

"But the mothers still get good support. We might not see them as often but they know where they can get help."