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Abstract

Tributes have been paid to a former porter, consultant and medical director of the Whittington Hospital who has died.

Dr Norman Parker, a haematologist and general physician, devoted a lifetime to the Highgate NHS trust until he retired five years ago.

He worked as a porter in 1970 before returning after training as a consultant in 1982, aged 32.

Dr Richard Jennings, the hospital’s current medical director, said: “Norman Parker was a wonderful doctor and a very caring man, who I think helped to really transform the lives of his patients. I have particular memories of how hugely supportive he was towards me and my acute medicine colleagues in the early days of the acute medicine service.”

He said Dr Parker made great contributions to under and postgraduate training at the hospital and had revolutionised the “holistic care” of adults and children with sickle cell anaemia.

Dr Parker was also the medical adviser of the Sickle Sell Society, who said he had died “peacefully” and “surrounded by his family”.

The Society paid tribute to his “compassion, kindness and passion to make a difference”, adding: “His caring nature and his wisdom will be greatly missed.”

In 2013, in a moving interview with the ­Tribune, Dr Parker paid tribute to one of his patients he had known for 25 years. Henrietta Gabriel, who was 41 at the time of her death, had spent more than half her life going to the ­Whittington to be treated for sickle cell anaemia.

The mother-of-three, from Islington, died from complications associated with the genetic disease, during a holiday in Kingston, Jamaica.

Dr Parker wrote in the hospital’s in-house magazine at the time: “I have never before written an obituary for a patient but Henrietta was a friend to many, as well as being one of the regulars.”

Dr Parker had also set up Saturday morning one-stop clinics for the disease and was “utterly dependable” as a medical director, the Whittington said in a statement.