Stargazer and retired medic Dr. Morley Nash is set to quit Bermuda and return to Canada after more than 40 years on the island.

Dr. Nash, 72, and wife Mary, of Moonray Manor, Pembroke, are planning to leave for Canada early in the New Year.

The doctor, who has written the monthly astronomy column in The Royal Gazette for 30 years and is president of the Astronomical Society of Bermuda, said: "We are definitely going some time or other in the next few months.'' Dr. Nash added: "I'll be very sorry to leave Bermuda because I've been established here for quite a while.

"But the humidity is beginning to make us suffer a bit. We'd like to get out of it to somewhere where it's a bit cooler and there are seasons. Here, you get nine months of summer and that's it.

"I'll still be doing the column for The Royal Gazette for a few months more, though.'' Dr. Nash, who was born in Chilliwack, British Columbia, and his wife have two children, Andrew, 54, who lives in Canada, and Sylvia, 42, who lives in Washington.

He qualified in medicine in his native country and worked in the Vancouver, Toronto and Ontario areas before arriving at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital in 1952.

The young doctor spent a year at the hospital before returning to Canada -- but came back three years later, this time to stay, after the KEMH authorities begged him to return.

He worked in almost every area of medicine in the then-tiny hospital -- as an anaesthetist, performing post-mortems and carrying out X-rays.

He recalled when he officially hung up his stethoscope in 1985: "You couldn't be fussy in those days.

"With less than 20 doctors on the staff, physicians didn't have the luxury of specialising. If you didn't do something, it just didn't get done.'' Dr. Nash is credited, along with two black doctors, V. O'Donnell King and Eustace Cann, with helping to end a policy of segregation of black and white staff and patients at the hospital.

He later said: "I came here at a time that was ripe for change -- I just helped push it along.'' Dr. Nash also set up a proper medical records system at the hospital -- previously, there had been no records library and files were kept in doctors' offices. And he was instrumental in creating the King Edward's first intensive care unit, which started with just three beds.

Dr. Nash served as the hospital's medical superintendent for 16 years, until the post was abolished in 1969, and then trained in geriatric medicine in the UK before returning to the KEMH.

He also pushed through the accreditation of the old hospital, a Canadian scheme where hospitals are categorised according to bed numbers.

Hospitals with 200 beds were expected to provide a level of equipment and services and to satisfy the first Canadian inspectors, hospital authorities had to promise to build a new hospital.

But even after his official retirement, Dr. Nash continued to contribute to the health and welfare of the people of Bermuda -- he returned to the King Edward to run an out-patient clinic for several years.

Dr. Eugene Harvey, who worked with Dr. Nash for many years, said: "There is no question Morley helped upgrade the quality of care at the hospital and continued to do that over a long period of time.

`He really has spanned the changeover of medical care in Bermuda from GPs only to a good proportion of specialists in several areas.

"And he's always been a very good-natured person and cheerful with patients and colleagues alike.''