Obituary Sister Mary Loughnam

Press, 2 May 1988, Page 15

Obituary Sister Mary Loughnam

Sister Mary Alphonsus Loughnan, a Christchurch Catholic nursing sister, died in Christchurch this week. She was 79. Sister Loughnan was born, in Invercargill but left New Zealand for Australia in the 19205, where she joined the light opera company, J. C. Williamson. In 1932, however, at the age of 24, she decided she was called for a religious life and entered the nursing order of the Little Company of Mary in Sydney, where she had nursing training.

Ten years later, Sister Loughnan returned to New Zealand and worked in the operating theatre at Southern Cross Hospital, formerly' Calvary Hospital, in Christchurch. Calvary was run by the order but later sold to Southern Cross.

From 1954 to 1958, Sister Loughnan went to London, where she managed the operating theatre at the order’s hospital at Dollis Hill. She returned to New Zealand, but in 1968 went back to Sydney for three years, before finally re-

turning to New Zealand in 1971. The mother superior of the Christchurch order, Sister Philippine Cass, said Sister Loughnan had excelled at nursing, particularly in X-ray . and operating theatre work.

Sister Loughnan had also retained her love of Gilbert and Sullivan, and had spread her “expertise and gaiety all over the world,” said Sister Cass. Sister Loughnan had lived at the order’s Mary Potter Hospital until her death.