Westport town nurse to retire after decades of community service

Linda, Westport’s town nurse, said she is retiring after years of local service, recounting clinic work, home visits and volunteer roles during a recorded interview on the community program "What's Buzzing in Westport." The host opened the segment by identifying Linda as the town’s nurse and marking her retirement.

Linda said she took the town nurse job in May 2018 after retiring from hospital work and that the role is “completely different from working in a hospital.” She described organizing and staffing COVID-19 vaccination clinics in 2019–2020 at local sites including Dartmouth and UMass Dartmouth, saying the community was “so happy to get the vaccines.”

The nurse detailed routine public-health services she provided: flu and blood-pressure clinics at the Council on Aging, monthly blood drives with the American Red Cross, homebound visits to fill medication boxes and check on patients, suture removal and wound care in the town office, and patient education such as teaching people to use glucometers.

She described a year-long case in which she visited a patient weekly after that patient received a liver transplant that contained tuberculosis; Linda said she helped fill that person’s medication box and ensured adherence while coordinating treatment over months.

Program participants and the host emphasized Linda’s deep local ties. She traced her family’s roots to a blueberry farm on Pineh Hill Road and told stories about raising children in town. A participant who described living with the effects of a stroke thanked Linda for telephone support and steady care, saying, “You’ve seen me on my worst days. You’ve talked me through some unhappy challenges in my life by telephone.” That participant credited Linda with understanding that disabilities are not always visible.

On education and career, Linda said she began as a nurse’s aide at St. Luke’s, attended nursing school while starting a family, later returned for an RN in her 40s, and still identifies with bedside nursing: “I’m always an LPN in my heart.” She said she will be 74 and does not want to keep working until something prevents her from doing so.

The program closed with the host thanking Linda for her decades of service and urging the community to “embrace your nurses.” The host and other speakers observed that Linda’s combination of clinical work and community volunteerism—Council on Aging activities and involvement with Stroke Buddies and Friends—left a lasting impression on local residents.

Details not specified in the program include the exact effective date of Linda’s retirement and any formal town succession or hiring plans. The program used two different surnames for Linda in the conversation (the host initially named her “Linda Pierce” while Linda later used “Linda Almeida”); to avoid misidentification this article refers to her by her first name and role as presented on the program.

What happens next: the segment ended with thanks and well-wishes; no formal town action or personnel appointment was announced on the program.