Muriel Snow (1930-2008)

Muriel Snow, a drug and alcohol counsellor with Armidale Community Health for the past 20 years, died this week after a short battle with cancer.

Hunter New England Health’s Tablelands Cluster Manager Wendy Mulligan, said Muriel had always wanted work as long as possible in the career she loved. This she achieved by still holding her counselling position and a number of other advisory and leadership roles with Hunter New England Health right until the end.

Born in Western Australia and originally obtaining qualifications in Agriculture and Teaching, Muriel made the switch to psychology relatively late in life.

"This was to be life changing for her. Muriel had outstanding success in her psychology degree, her postgraduate counselling courses, all of which she attained with distinction. Following graduation with her Master of Letters, Muriel worked for a short while as a part-time tutor at the University of New England.

"She was first employed at Armidale Community Health in 1988 as a Psychologist working within the Drug and Alcohol Clinical Service.

"Over the past 20 years, Muriel has supervised several up and coming psychologists-in-training and provided leadership to members of the drug and alcohol team for much of that time.

"She also served as an Area Advisor for Psychologists in the health service," she said.

One of Muriel’s great loves was her work with Armidale’s Aboriginal community.

"Our Aboriginal Health staff particularly wanted to thank her for her friendship and for taking up the fight for the health of Aboriginal people," Mrs Mulligan said.

"Muriel will be remembered as a private person, who loved her cats, and had an obvious dedication to her work, her colleagues and clients.

"She will be missed," Mrs Mulligan said.

Muriel died at Armidale Hospital on 7 May 2008. It was her 78th birthday.