Nursing Today because of Florence Nightingale

 

            Florence Nightingale was born in Italy on May 12, 1820 and died in 1910.  She is a British nurse and hospital reformer who is known as the founder of modern nursing. Nursing before the time of Ms. Nightingale was considered low grade and uneducated work. Today because of the works of Ms. Nightingale, nursing is viewed differently it is viewed as one of the most respected profession in the world.

Ms. Nightingale was inspired to study nursing because of all the sufferings she saw while traveling Europe with her parents. After the Crimean war broke in 1854 Nightingale was stimulated by the newspaper reports about the poor care and archaic sanitation methods provided by the British hospital in Turkey. Nightingale was touched and decided to make a difference and change the situation.  She sent a letter to the British minister of war volunteering her service to Crimea.  Nightingale did not really know what would happen and surprisingly the minister of war responded in asking her to manage all nursing operation at the war. Nightingale bravely responded to the proposal and with the help of 38 catholic Anglicans sisters and lay nurses she begun her journey. They found the military hospitals did not have enough supplies, the wounded soldiers were unwashed and filthy and diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhus were crucial. Nightingale worked really hard to reduce the death rate and wounded soldiers.

Nightingale has greatly contributed to the evolution of nursing as a profession because of these contributions nursing is raised to a medical profession with high standards of education and important responsibilities

~ by mchantalmaison on December 9, 2008.