Thousands of parents, children and babies across the region have reason to stop today and pay silent thanks to the region's very first NHS fertility treatment sister.

Sister Alison Lambert, who has helped the dreams of infertile couples come true since she helped establish the region's first dedicated NHS fertility centre 12 years ago, retired yesterday.

Thousands of babies and children running around the region owe, at least in part, their lives to the nurse and two doctors who began the NHS fertility service as small adjunct to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infimary's gynaecological ward.

Darlington-based mother-of-three Mrs Lambert and her colleagues, doctors Alison Murdoch and Mary Herbert, have seen that small service grow to a 35-man team based at Newcastle's high tech Centre for Life.

And, at a leaving ceremony yesterday, Mrs Lambert, a Geordie now living at Middleton St George near Darlington, took the time to reflect on her work as the region's first fertility sister working on test tube and other methods of treatment for both men and women.

She said: "It has been the most fulfilling and satisfying work I could ever have done.

You get men and women coming in after maybe ten, 11, 12 years of negative results and when we tell them that they have a pregnancy after just one cycle of treatment they just keep saying they can't believe it. It is a lovely, fantastic thing to see."

Mrs Lambert said that public attitudes to the process of fertility treatment for had changed during her career. She said: "People have begun to realise that it is like a disability for some people, it can really have this massive negative impact on their lives. It achieves so much to be able to help them."

Mrs Lambert's long time colleague, consultant gynaecologist Dr Alison Murdoch, paid tribute. She said: "Alison was part of establishing something which really helps people and has built up a fantastic team of nurses."

Mrs Lambert now plans to spend more time with her husband, Abbey National manager Tim.