HAVING spent nearly 40 years as a nurse, Barbara Morbin is used to seeing former patients return to visit.

But now, she is working alongside one of the many people she has helped nurse back to health.

Barbara, who works on the neonatal unit at Royal Hampshire County Hospital, is now a colleague of Ali Ansari, who is training to be a GP.

Ali was born prematurely alongside his twin sister at the hospital in Winchester in 1990. The twins were cared for by deputy ward sister Barbara, who has worked there since 1979 and has looked after babies on the neonatal unit since 1980.

Barbara said: “When Ali first started he was asking around if anyone who worked on the ward in 1990 was still here. I think I was one of the only ones and it was quite a shock to see him again.

“It’s always so great to see how the people that we care for on the unit have progressed in life and how well they’ve turned out.

“We often get patients who stayed on the unit in the past come back to see us, which is always rewarding, but they don’t usually come back to work with us.”

Dr Ansari said: “Being a doctor has been a passion of mine for a long time and I’ve loved working with the neonatal team here. It was a complete coincidence that I was placed here in paediatrics, where I was cared for at birth. Seeing it from the other side really gives me a perspective what happened when my sister and I were born.”