Municipal Nurse

The town nurse, called the Municipal Nurse, then the Board of Health Nurse, and later the Public Health Nurse, visited the sick at home and later ran the town's clinics and screening programs. The school physician had asked since 1916 for a school or district nurse. In March 1920 Town Meeting voted $1,200 for a municipal nurse and accepted a $1,000 gift from the Public Health Nursing Association of the Billerica Red Cross. The nurse was first run by a Public Health Nursing Committee and later came under the Board of Health. When the state required a School Nurse from September 1921, the first municipal nurse, Mary I. Nugent, moved to the school post and Freda Thommen replaced her.

From 1946 the officer lists call the post "Board of Health Nurse," and there were two or three nurses from 1967. After budget cuts in 1991 and 1992 the service went down to one nurse, and from 1993 it was run as the Board of Health's Division of Community Nursing with a single Public Health Nurse.