„Nurses today care for the sick, but, there will come a day, when they will be providing health care”. Thus did Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, define one hundred and fifty years ago, the road that others were to follow and these words have not lost their actuality even to this day. May 12, her birthday, was designated World Nurses Day and International Nurses Day in her honor, to celebrate the “Lady With The Lamp” and the guardian angel of the Crimean War soldiers.
Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 to a wealthy English aristocratic family. She received a multifaceted education, spoke six languages and her interests turned early towards the plight of the sufferers, the sick and those in need of help. She turned away from the life her social standing offered her in the English baronial circles. In spite of her family’s objections, she studied nursing in Germany and Paris instead and went to work in an English hospital.
“The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.”
From very early on she was not satisfied with the primitive medical care she found in hospitals and tirelessly worked towards improving and reorganizing the conditions, even in peace times. The most unbearable conditions she experienced, however, were in army hospitals during the Crimean War in 1853 at the Front where she was sent with 38 nurses to care for the injured. The army hospital lacked everything. There were no beds, no bandages, no anaesthetics and no pain medications. The unheated rooms did not meet the very basic standards of hygiene and there was practically no clean water. The resulting infections decimated the injured. The hospital statistics showed that 42% of the injured died - the soldiers left on the battle field had a greater chance of survival! Through tremendous effort and perseverance, Miss Nightingale reduced the mortality rate to 2.2. She always carried a lamp while making rounds of wounded soldiers at night and was soon called “The Lady with the Lamp”.
Notes on Nursing
Florence Nightingale laid the foundation for the theory and practice of nurses training and at the same time, processed her horrific experiences at the army hospital in her “Notes on Nursing” and two hundred other publications. She campaigned for improved conditions in hospitals and stressed the importance of hygiene, clean air and water, good lighting, healthy diet and proper care. She urged hospitals to ensure an environment conducive to recovery instead of the gloomy, inhuman old hospitals and hellish army hospitals. She recognized that the child mortality rate could be reduced significantly with good hygiene alone and initiated the education not only of midwives but also of house call nurses. Advanced training for nurses was one of her goals and she expected the nurses to work with discipline and devotion, with their heart and soul and according to their best knowledge.
“The work of a nurse requires a three-fold interest: intellectual interest of the „case”, interest from the heart towards the patient, professional interest towards the technical aspect of the work.”
The following is a concise summary of the ideal nurse that applies to this day:
„A nurse should be sensible; honorable and incorruptible; honest and trustworthy; extremely punctual and decent; quick but not flustered; gentle but not slow; amiable, but not a babbler; considerate but never faltering; cheerful and optimistic; clean in her own person and keeps the patient area clean; benevolent and ready to serve; thinks of the patient, not of herself.” She was light years ahead of her time in understanding the significance of prevention. She believed that though “Nurses today care for the sick, but, there will come a day when they will be providing health care”.
