Obituary: Mary Lindsay

Adapted from BMJ 23 August 2025

It is taken for granted that a parent will usually stay with a young child in hospital, but this was not always allowed. Mary Lindsay changed that.

She was born in 1926 and died in March 2025 of heart failure after a long career as a paediatrician.

In the early 50s visiting hours for parents of children were severely restricted. This was due to the idea that parents brought germs with them into the hospital and that their presence upset their children. At the time, the emotional development of children was ignored by the medical profession. Mary opposed this view. The first consultant that provided beds for mothers in children’s wards was Dr Dermod McCarthy in Amersham Hospital with whom she worked. He was the only doctor to change his practice after seeing a film about it.

John Bowlby, a child psychiatrist, had presented A two year old goes to hospital to paediatricians at the Royal Society of Medicine in 1952. It was not well received. A professor of surgery wrote in The Lancet, “There is a lot of sloppy sentiment talked about this. If children are left alone for a day or two they forget all about their parents. The hours in hospital after a parent visits is chaotic. The children all cry and shriek and will not go to sleep”.

Various films were made demonstrating the improvements experienced by children when they were allowed to have a parent (usually the mother) with them. Mary appeared in Going to hospital with mother in 1958.

Mary, Dr MacCarthy, and ward sister Ivy Morris, conducted a study of 1,000 children who had been admitted with their parents, and demonstrated how much better they did, but it took till well into the 1960s before the movement to have parents with their children in hospital took off.

Mary was born in Belfast but moved to Dorset where her father was a headmaster. During WW2 she was evacuated to Northern Ireland. She qualified at Belfast in 1951. After experience in paediatrics, general practice, adult and child psychiatry, she became a consultant in child psychiatry in Aylesbury. Throughout her career she emphasised the importance of emotional well being in the physical health of children. In 1989 she was elected president of the Royal Society of Medicine (Paediatric Branch).

Mary married at the age of 75 becoming a step-mother to three children, who survive her.