A FORMER district nurse who developed multiple sclerosis has died.

Patricia Gale, better known as Wendy, was a district nurse based at Skelmanthorpe Health Centre from 1973.

Living at the time at Birchfield Grove, she set up the Skelmanthorpe and Area Relief Association (SARA), fundraising for adjustable beds, nebulisers, wheelchairs and other equipment.

Fundraising efforts included a 12-mile bed push between villages.

Her son, Richard Webb, said: “Mum found caring for terminally ill patients particularly rewarding and this led her, in 1987, to become the day hospice community liaison sister in the brand new Kirkwood Hospice.”

In 1988, the family moved to Devon, where Mrs Gale continued to look after terminally ill patients in the communities around Newport.

In 1993 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which eventually forced her to retire.

She died in her sleep in Rowcroft Hospice, Torquay, on March 19, aged 67.

She leaves husband Karl, two children, Richard and James, four grandchildren and three step-grandchildren.