RETIRED senior clinical medical officer to the former IW District Health Authority, Dr Margaret Payne, died at her Seaview home, on March 9, aged 99.
Dr Payne, known as Peggy, was appointed to the post in 1971, having moved to the Island from Switzerland, where her husband, Dr Anthony Payne, had been the assistant director general of the World Health Organisation.
Having worked almost exclusively in child health care, she held the Island post until she retired in 1982.
Her role involved making health checks on children, from the age of six weeks upwards — working closely with GPs, health visitors and schools.
Dr Payne’s duties also included community medicine work, giving vaccinations to the elderly.
She qualified as a physician in London in 1940 and married her husband in St Pancras, London, in 1940. The couple had three sons. Dr Payne’s husband died in 1970.
Dr Payne, of Old Seaview Lane, Seaview, initially worked as house physician at the Princess Beatrice and The Royal Free hospitals, London, where she was involved in child welfare and school clinics.
She later worked as a medical officer at Southampton General and as house physician at the London Chest Hospital and Sanatorium, and a tuberculosis officer at Bethnal Green Hospital, London.
Following a period in Oxford, the family moved to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1952, where her husband was on the staff of the World Health Organisation.
They moved to the United States in 1960, where she was employed as a research assistant at Yale University, Connecticut, studying rubella, arthritis, and newborn staphylococcal infection. They moved back to Geneva in 1966.
In retirement, she was a trustee of the IW Youth Trust and also worked with the British Red Cross.
Dr Payne, who had passions for archaeology and bird watching, eventually fulfilled her dreams of international travel.
She leaves her eldest son, Peter, two grandsons, two great-grandsons and a stepson. Her sons, Nick and David, died.
The funeral service will take place at the IW Crematorium on Thursday at 12.45pm.