A GP is set to retire after 30 years of running his long-serving family general practice in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Dr David Morgan has spent his whole life involved in the medical field, following in his parents and grandfather's footsteps.
Dr Morgan is a third-generation GP and began working at Penrhiwceiber Medical Centre in 1993 after his father, Trevor Morgan, fell ill. The 61-year-old, who lives in Swansea, has been commuting to Penrhiwceiber ever since and is set to take a step back in July, before retiring officially in six months time.
He said: “My grandfather came over to the Valleys from the Royal College of Surgeons [Dublin, Ireland] looking for a locum. He stopped in Penrhiwceiber did a locum and got offered a partnership in 1923. They were just building the Mountain Ash General Hospital for the minors and workers and he was a part of that - all the GPs agreed to do that for free and they would only pay consultants from Cardiff if they needed them to come up. That was run for a few years and he met a nurse called Violet Morgan and they stayed in Penrhiwceiber.
Read more: Postmistress who has served her community for half a century retires aged 73
"There he was with a couple of surgeries and worked until he was in his 70s. My mother [Mary], who was his daughter, came back to work as a doctor [around] 1959/ 1960. Her husband from Swansea, Trevor Morgan, came with her and the two of them came as a package and took over the practice. In 1960, they carried on working in the practice that he started.
"I was the second oldest - one of six kids - so I grew up here and I did my training in Swansea and took it over in 1993 to help my dad as he got a bit ill. My kids and wife are in Swansea so I’ve commuted [to Penrhiwceiber] since ‘93."
Come July, Dr Morgan will begin his retirement by working in the practice for two days a week for the next six months. Ashgrove Surgery in Pontypridd will be taking it over and will keep it a “full-blooded” facility and “provide ongoing services.”
The father-of-three said that he was "very conscious" that he didn’t just want to "walk away" from the GP surgery and ensured it was going to "good hands." He added that it's "time to wind down a bit and carry on doing a little bit of medicine.”
Speaking of his time running the surgery, he said: "I’m 50 yards across the road from where I grew up so I’m basically looking after people I went to school with, which is one of the couple of reasons for staying.
"I loved [the] sciences but growing up with your parents as GPs, that was the topic of conversation around the table. In those days, you’d be sewing up people and treating people in the front entrance porch or kitchen. Out of hours was all the GPs [responsibility] - they were on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So I was literally wrapped up in that environment."
He officially took "the load off" his father and carried on the family practice in a terrace house before opening the new surgery building in 2005. He noted that in the last 15 years, there has been a shortage of GPs in the Valleys but in his case, help from locums, staff, the tight-knit community, and continuity of care was the "saving grace" in him being able to run the surgery. He added: "Like most single-handed or small surgeries we multitask at everything.
"Managing the patients was the main focus and they appreciated it. There’s a good community here… it’s the friendliest practice, nieces bunch of receptionists that I’ve ever come across. We have an attentive team who are all very happy and I think that’s why it all worked - they tried to help and didn’t push people away."
Dr Morgan feels that it's a "full-circle" moment retiring in 2023 after his grandfather moved to the Valleys from Ballybunion, in Ireland, and started his medical career in 1923. His children have also followed in their footsteps, with his two sons being GPs and daughter working as a doctor in a hospital. Dr Morgan now looks forward to "winding dow", and taking the time to take long weekend trips away.
Read next:
- Heartbroken mum says jail sentence for her daughter's killer is 'an insult'
- Welsh mountain on fire again as smoke pours from hillside
- 'My babies were born premature and a stranger saved their lives'
- Pontypridd's Muni arts centre to be given new lease of life as redevelopment approved
- This is when three-weekly bin collections in Rhondda Cynon Taf will start
