Sylvia Gyde

Sylvia Nancy Gyde (; 27 March 1936 – 23 April 2024) was a British public health doctor, medical researcher and National Health Service administrator. She founded a family planning clinic for women on a deprived council estate in Woolwich, southeast London and worked in general practice in Hall Green, Birmingham. Gyde was medical director of the West Midlands Regional Perinatal Survey, district medical officer and director of public health at North Birmingham Health Authority, medical director of clinical audit for the West Midlands and medical director of the Evidence Supported Medicine Union.

Biography Gyde was born in Llanidloes, mid-Wales on 27 March 1936. She was the daughter of the tannery manager Robert Clayton and his wife Violet , who was a chartered secretary. Gyde had two younger brothers. Gyde attended the Saint Felix School in Southwold as a scholarship border, Gyde was tutored by the physiologist Jean Banister and the Nobel prize winning chemist Dorothy Hodgkin and sung in choirs. Her work resulted in the publication of a series of papers on inflammatory bowel disease. Gyde examined the deaths of 250 babies and interviewed doctors, midwives and mothers. Gyde took up the role in January 1989 and was based at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield. She oversaw preventative health measures, the promotion of health and advised health authority managers on how their decisions will make a clinical impact. The following year, Gyde revisited perinatal mortality in her annual report, drawing attention to the fact that the rate of stillbirths and deaths of newborn babies were still above the national and regional averages.

Personal life She was married to the haematology consultant Oscar Humphrey Gyde in 1961.