Florence Nightingale – Nursing is a profession within the healthcare sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other healthcare providers by their approach to patient care, training, and scope of practice. Nurses practice in many specialisms with differing levels of prescriber authority.
Many nurses provide care within the ordering scope of physicians, and this traditional role has shaped the public image of nurses as care providers. However, nurses are permitted by most jurisdictions to practice independently in a variety of settings depending on training level. In the postwar period, nurse education has undergone a process of diversification towards advanced and specialized credentials, and many of the traditional regulations and provider roles are changing.
Nurses develop a plan of care, working collaboratively with physicians, therapists, the patient, the patient’s family, and other team members, that focus on treating illness to improve quality of life. Nurses may help coordinate the patient care performed by other members of an interdisciplinary healthcare team such as therapists, medical practitioners, and dietitians. Nurses provide care both interdependently, for example, with physicians, and independently as nursing professionals.
Florence Nightingale (May 12, 1820- August 13, 1910)
Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy, on May 12, 1820. During the Crimean War, she and a team of nurses improved the unsanitary conditions at a British base hospital, reducing the death count by two-thirds. Her writings sparked worldwide health care reform. In 1860 she established St. Thomas’ Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. She died August 13, 1910, in London.
Born : 12 May 1820 Florence, Tuscany
Died : 13 August 1910 (aged 90) Park Lane, London, England, United Kingdom
Nationality : British
Institutions : 1. Selimiye Barracks, Scutari 2. King’s College London
Known : for Pioneering modern nursing
Notable awards
- Royal Red Cross (1883)
- Lady of Grace of the Order of St John (LGStJ)
- Order of Merit (1907)
Florence Nightingale Life Summary
Florence Nightingale was a guiding force in the field of nursing. She was born May 12, 1820, to William “WEN” and Frances “Fanny” Nightingale in Florence, Italy. Her parents named her after the city she was born in, just over two years earlier they had named her sister-Frances Parthenope “Parthe”-after Parthenopolis, a Greek settlement now part of Naples, Italy.
William Nightingale was the son of a Sheffield, England, banker and had changed his surname to Nightingale from Shore in order to inherit the estate of a great uncle, a mining magnate in Lea, Derbyshire, England. In 1817, William married Frances “Fanny” Smith, the daughter of William Smith, an abolitionist Whig member of Parliament. They embarked on an extended tour of the Mediterranean for their honeymoon, returning to England in 1821 with their two daughters.
Florence Nightingale’s Early Life
The Nightingales lived at Lea Hall from 1821 to 1825, until their new home, Lea Hurst was completed. However, Fanny deemed Lea Hurst inadequate almost immediately, with “only 15 bedrooms” and located too far from London. It became their summer home. William purchased Embley Park, a large estate in Hampshire, which became their permanent residence.
- Place: Florence, Italy
- Birth: May 12, 1820 (International Nurses Day)
- Daughter of a wealthy landowner, William Nightingale, who later took responsibility for her education, teaching her statistics, languages, history, mathematics, etc.
- Her father provided her with reputable education which was uncommon for a Victorian woman.
It was at Embley Park in February 1837 that Florence received a calling from God; she wrote “God has spoke to me and called me to His service.” Though she did not know what that service would be, she knew that the society life her parents and sister enjoyed so much was not going to be enough for her. She had begun a courtship with Richard Monckton Milnes, a childhood friend, and began spending time visiting the poor and sick.
She asked to stay on at Lea Hurst after the rest of the family returned to Embley in 1843, but Fanny would not allow it. In the fall of 1845, the village of Wellow was hit with an influenza epidemic, and Florence nursed several people on their deathbed.
Florence knew what her calling was by this time, but the rest of her family, her mother in particular, thought she had chosen an occupation at odds with her position in society. At the time, nurses were stereotyped as coming from the lower classes with social standing little better than prostitutes, but Florence was determined to change that. In 1849, after a long courtship, she finally refused marriage to Milnes, who went on to marry Annabella Hungerford Crewe. He and his wife continued to be staunch supporters and friends of Florence.
Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War
In March 1854, the Crimean War began when Britain and France declared war on Russia after the latter invaded autonomous areas of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Much of the fighting occurred in the Crimea, on the Black Sea. The British wounded were transported 300 miles across the sea to Scutari (now Üsküdar), just outside of what is now Istanbul, Turkey.
Florence had already planned to travel to the Crimea when, in October, the Secretary of War, Sir Sidney Herbert, asked her to gather a group of nurses to nurse the wounded at the military hospital in Scutari. On November 4, 1854, she arrived with 37 other nurses at the Barracks Hospital, a huge, quadrangular building with sides nearly a quarter mile long.
Approximately 18,000 wounded and dying men lay in rooms and lined the corridors. The conditions in the hospital were deplorable: there were miles of corridors stuffed with wounded and dying men; bandages were rags that were clotted with blood; food consisted of watery soup; and sanitary conditions were such that cholera and lice were rampant.
Figure: The Lady with the Lamp
During the next 21 months, Florence worked to improve conditions in the hospital. She and her nurses bathed the soldiers, washed their linens, and fed them more substantial food. She eventually established a separate kitchen with her own money to prepare easily digested food for patients. She secured a source of clean drinking water and improved overall sanitary conditions. She set up a system for receiving patients, the basis of modern triage.
The mortality rate declined 2% because of her efforts. She personally attended to countless men, many on their deathbeds. She made so many endless rounds, carrying a lamp with her in the late hours of the night, that she became known as the “Lady with the Lamp,” a nickname that was published in an account of her work in The London Times.
Support for Florence’s efforts to improve conditions for the war wounded spilled over into her efforts to establish nursing as a vocation for women. On November 29, 1855, a public meeting was held in London to formally recognize her efforts, resulting in the creation of the Nightingale Fund the only recognition Florence would accept.
A Pioneer in Nursing
Her reports and testimony before a commission on the sanitary conditions of the army led to numerous improvements and the opening of an army medical college in 1861, a year after the Nightingale Training School was established. Florence also advised the army on sanitary conditions in India during and after the India Mutiny of 1857, which led to the establishment of a Sanitary Department within the Indian government.
In 1859, Florence published Notes on Nursing. She intended the book to help in the practice of nursing, not to be a comprehensive guide it continues to be used as an introduction to nursing today.
During the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), Florence was asked for advice by various countries and independently by doctors and nurses. In the 1870s, she mentored Linda Richards, the first professionally trained American nurse, who established nurse training programs in the U.S. and Japan.
Florence helped establish numerous nursing organizations throughout the remainder of her life and received numerous awards for her work, including the German order of the Cross of Merit and the French gold medal of Secours aux Blessés Militaires. Queen Victoria awarded her the Royal Red Cross in 1883. She was appointed a Lady of Grace of the Order of St John in 1904 and became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit in 1907. She was given the
Honorary Freedom of the City of London in 1908. On May 10, 1910 she was presented with the badge of honor of the Norwegian Red Cross Society. On August 13 of that same year, Florence died peacefully at her home in London. An offer was extended for burial at Westminster Abbey but her family refused, burying her in the graveyard at St. Margaret Church in East Wellow, Hampshire, close to Embley Park.
The Lady with the Lamp
Florence Nightingale was distinctly not the romantic, retiring Victorian gentlewoman most of us imagine. She was a bright, tough, driven professional, a brilliant organizer and statistician, and one of the most influential women in 19th-century England. The best-known aspect of her life-nursing wounded soldiers at Scutari Hospital in Turkey during the Crimean War-comprised, in fact, a very small part of her 50-year career, but provided the springboard from which it all began.
Looking through a rough reproduction window at the London museum that bears her name is a little like peering over Nightingale’s shoulder in the Crimea and confronting the intimate details of life there-including her hand-drawn plan of the nurses’ quarters in the Barrack Hospital at Scutari, her personal seal and wax for letters, some of her books and her dispatch case, as well as an original letter written from the hospital and her famous lamp.
The museum’s permanent exhibit documents not only the war years, but also follows Nightingale throughout her extraordinary but largely overlooked life. A brief introductory film emphasizes her wealthy Victorian upbringing and expectations of a brilliant social career. In fact, Florence Nightingale accomplished so much during her full life that it is intriguing to wonder how she might be remembered had the public not become so fixated on the romantic image of her night-time rounds by candlelight at Scutari.
This small museum highlights all of her many accomplishments: introducing sanitary science to nursing and the British Army, raising the image of the British soldier from a brawling lowlife to a heroic working man; transforming nursing from an occupation which previously had been considered fit only for prostitutes to a respectable profession; establishing a nursing school at St. Thomas’s Hospital; laying out the principles of nursing in print in 1860; and revolutionizing the public health system of India without leaving England.
Changed the image of nursing
• Dubbed as the “Lady with the Lamp”
Ironically, during much of her long and accomplished life (she died in 1910, at the age of 90) the general public assumed she was already dead. Nightingale actually encouraged this misinformation. She returned from the Crimea under an assumed name and walked the last few miles to her parents’ home from the train station. Uninterested in her celebrity status, she wanted only to continue her work in peace and quiet.
She refused photographs and interviews, and avoided anything not directly related to her work for a Royal Commission investigating health in the British Army. Although she was undoubtedly the driving force behind the work, she almost never appeared in public. Her thoughts and work were with the army. In a private note, written at the end of 1856, she wrote:
Oh my poor men who endured so patiently. I feel I have been such a bad mother to you to come home and leave you lying in your Crimean grave. Seventy-three percent in eight regiments during six months from disease alone-who thinks of that now? But if I could carry any one point which would prevent any part of the recurrence of this our colossal calamity then I should have been true to the cause of those brave dead.
In the post-war period, Nightingale began studying new designs for modern hospitals all over Europe, in order to help the army reform its health and sanitary systems. In Paris she found a revolutionary design in which separate units, or pavilions, made up one large hospital. By making each pavilion a light and airy self-contained unit, the hospital minimized the spread of infections. She later succeeded in promoting this design in England.
Her research culminated in Notes on Hospitals, published in 1859, which combined two papers presented the year before at the Social Science Congress. Her words had a profound effect. She addressed every aspect of hospital management, from the purchase of iron bedsteads to replace the wooden ones, to switching to glass cups instead of tin.
The 108-page book went on into three editions and established Nightingale once more as an international authority. Her advice and approval were sought for hospitals all over Europe, from Holland to Portugal and even far-off India.
In particular, the governors of St. Thomas’s Hospital in London consulted with her on a matter key to the hospital’s future. The ancient hospital in Southwark was situated on land needed by railroads for a new line. The hospital’s governors had to decide whether they should sell the entire property and build a new facility in a better location, or allow the railroad to buy only part of the land and rebuild the hospital on the remainder. Some governors felt the hospital should stay where it had been for hundreds of years, serving the same community.
When they asked Nightingale for her opinion, rather than simply accepting the notion that the hospital was in fact serving patients in the area, she drew up and analyzed statistics on the origin of St. Thomas’s patients and proved that most did not come from the immediate neighborhood as the governors had assumed.
She also compiled a convincing body of statistics to prove that moving the hospital to a healthier site would improve the patient’s chances of recovery. After completing her analysis, in a telling display of political acumen, she sent it not to the body of governors as a whole, but to one particular governor: the Prince Consort.
In the end, the governors decided to move St. Thomas’s to its present location in Lambeth. At the time, Nightingale deemed the site to be unhealthy; nevertheless, the hospital was constructed with the pavilions she endorsed, and was finally completed in 1871. If you look carefully from Westminster Bridge, you can see the remaining pavilions wedged in between more contemporary parts of the hospital that have since engulfed the original. Ask for directions in the museum, and you can walk through the new parts of the hospital to Nightingale’s original entrance hall.
Success piled on success. In 1860, after five years of grueling work, she completed a voluminous report that resulted in the development of an Army Medical School in addition to greatly improved army barracks, hospitals, and living conditions for soldiers.
Also in 1860 she founded the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital. Far more than merely giving her name to the school, Nightingale personally advised on all matters of instruction, admissions supervision, and discipline. Her involvement extended beyond her professional duties; she often invited graduates to tea and kept in touch with them long after they had launched their careers.
Nightingale also published a 75-page booklet, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not. A popular book, its initial reception still did not foretell of its lasting importance. The book is still in print today in a facsimilie of the first edition and in a reprint of the second enlarged edition. In fact, it is the best-selling item in the museum’s small shop. “I think if you’re only going to buy one thing from our shop, it’s going to be Notes on Nursing,” says Alex Attewell, curator of the museum.
While medical knowledge has significantly increased since Nightingale’s time, her common sense and wisdom still forms a solid basis for caring for people. She believed, first and foremost, in hygiene (fresh air, cleanliness, clean water, proper drainage, and plenty of light), and constant consideration for the patient’s feelings. In one particularly empathetic passage, she addresses the importance of a quiet environment: Unnecessary noise, or noise that creates an expectation in the mind, is that which hurts a patient.
It is rarely the loudness of the noise, the effect upon the organ of the ear itself, which appears to affect the sick. How well a patient will generally bear, e.g., the putting up of a scaffolding close to the house, when he cannot bear the talking, still less the whispering, especially if it be a familiar voice, outside his door. Nightingale’s common-sense approach to health is a main theme throughout the museum’s exhibits.
“We’re interested in exploring what of her writing is still relevant today,” Attewell says. Because of her work on army medical reform, she was asked to contribute to a study of the problems of health in India. British troops on the subcontinent had the highest mortality rates of all-in 1859 the death rate was 69 per thousand, as opposed to 17 per thousand in England.
Through statistics and endless study, (compiled, amazingly, without ever visiting India) she discovered what no one else had noticed: that the English way of life could simply not be transferred to a hot climate. Her 23-page treatise on conditions in India (as compared with the government’s 2,028 pages of small print) was printed at her own expense and sent to anyone with influence, including Queen Victoria.
Once again, Nightingale revealed what no one even wanted to consider: that terrible living and 1 working conditions were killing British troops as they had in the Crimea.
Yet again she emphasized that improving the health of British troops would require improving sanitary standards as a whole. For four years Nightingale worked daily on the meticulous paperwork and statistics required to reform life in India. Her influence went beyond paperwork. Newly assigned viceroys to India visited her home for briefings before setting out for their new post.
In 1896, Nightingale “retired to her bed”, but, far from slowing down, she continued working on home health visiting, as the English call public health. “Her writing is extraordinarily relevant to today’s health visiting,” Attewell says. In an attempt to find out just how pertinent her writing is to the health profession today, the museum sent out questionnaires to 700 public health supervisors around the country. More than half came back almost immediately.
“Usually you’d think a 10 per cent response would be good,” Attewell says. “I think the interest we’ve got in the questionnaire shows there’s still extraordinary interest in her writing.” Yet more evidence of the timeless value in the work and wisdom of this remarkable woman.
Recognition and Appreciation
Based on her observations in the Crimea, Nightingale wrote Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army, an 830-page report analyzing her experience and proposing reforms for other military hospitals operating under poor conditions. The book would spark a total restructuring of the War Office’s administrative department, including the establishment of a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army in 1857.
Nightingale remained at Scutari for a year and a half. She left in the summer of 1856, once the Crimean conflict was resolved, and returned to her childhood home at Lea Hurst. To her surprise she was met with a hero’s welcome, which the humble nurse did her best to avoid. The Queen rewarded Nightingale’s work by presenting her with an engraved brooch that came to be known as the “Nightingale Jewel” and by granting her a prize of $250,000 from the British government.
Nightingale decided to use the money to further her cause. In 1860, she funded the establishment of St. Thomas’ Hospital, and within it, the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. Nightingale became a figure of public admiration.
Poems, songs and plays were written and dedicated in the heroine’s honor. Young women aspired to be like her. Eager to follow her example, even women from the wealthy upper classes started enrolling at the training school. Thanks to Nightingale, nursing was no longer frowned upon by the upper classes; it had, in fact, come to be viewed as an honorable vocation.
Later Life
While at Scutari, Nightingale had contracted “Crimean fever” and would never fully recover. By the time she was 38 years old, she was homebound and bedridden, and would be so for the remainder of her life. Fiercely determined, and dedicated as ever to improving health care and alleviating patients’ suffering, Nightingale continued her work from her bed. Residing in Mayfair, she remained an authority and advocate of health care reform, interviewing politicians and welcoming distinguished visitors from her bed.
In 1859, she published Notes on Hospitals, which focused on how to properly run civilian hospitals. Throughout the U.S. Civil War, she was frequently consulted about how to best manage field hospitals. Nightingale also served as an authority on public sanitation issues in India for both the military and civilians, although she had never been to India herself
In 1908, at the age of 88, she was conferred the merit of honor by King Edward. In May of 1910, she received a congratulatory message from King George on her 90th birthday.
Death and Legacy
In August 1910, Florence Nightingale fell ill, but seemed to recover and was reportedly in good spirits. A week later, on the evening of Friday, August 12, 1910, she developed an array of troubling symptoms.
She died unexpectedly at 2 pm the following day, Saturday, August 13, at her home in London. Characteristically, she had expressed the desire that her funeral be a quiet and modest affair, despite the public’s desire to honor Nightingale-who tirelessly devoted her life to preventing disease and ensuring safe and compassionate treatment for the poor and the suffering. Respecting her last wishes, her relatives turned down a national funeral.
The “Lady with the Lamp” was laid to rest in her family’s plot at St. Margaret’s Church, East Wellow, in Hampshire, England. dist The Florence Nightingale Museum, which sits at the site of the original Nightingale Training School for Nurses, houses more than 2,000 artifacts commemorating the life and career of the “Angel of the Crimea.” To this day, Florence Nightingale is broadly acknowledged and revered as the pioneer of modern nursing.
Question about Florence Nightingale
Q. Who was Florence Nightingale?
Q. Who was the founder of modern nursing? (BNMC-2022, 2021, 2019)
Answer:
Florence Nightingale was a truly inspirational nurse. She was the founder of modern nursing.
Q. When and where was Florence Nightingale born? (BNMC-2019)
Answer:
Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy on 12 May 1820. Her father was a wealthy landowner. She was brought up in Derbyshire (where she spent her summers) and Hampshire (where she spent her winters). Florence was named after the place of her birth
Q. Write about education of Florence Nightingale.
Answer:
At the time when Florence was born, many girls did not receive any type of education. Florence was very lucky because her father, William Nightingale, believed that all women should receive an education. He taught Florence and her sister a variety of subjects ranging from science and mathematics to history and philosophy.
Q. Write about Florence Nightingale teenage years.
Answer:
Teenage years of Florence Nightingale
As Florence grew up she developed an interest in helping others. She cared for sick pets and servants whenever she had the chance. Florence Nightingale felt called by God to become a nurse. At seventeen years of age, she believed she was called into service by God “to do something toward lifting the load of suffering from the helpless and miserable.”
At first her parents refused to allow her to become a nurse because, at that time, it was not thought to be a suitable She used this fund after the war to help profession for a well-educated woman. But Florence did not give up. Eventually in 1851 her father gave his permission and Florence went to Germany to train as a nurse. In 1853 was running a hospital in London.
Q. Mention the work timeline of Florence Nightingale?
Answer:
Work Timeline
- 1849- Traveled to Europe to study the European hospital system.
- 1850 – Traveled to Alexandria, Egypt and began studying nursing at the Institute of Saint Vincent de Paul.
- 1851 – Aged thirty-one, went to Germany to train to become a nurse.
- 1853 – Became superintendent of the Hospital for Gentlewomen in London.
- 1854-The Crimean War broke out.
Q. Why Florence Nightingale was called ‘the lady of the lamp’? (BNMC-2022, 2021, 2019)
Answer:
Florence Nightingale is famous for her nursing work during the Crimean War (1854-56). She changed the face of nursing from a mostly untrained profession to a highly skilled and well- respected medical profession with very important responsibilities. Florence was very dedicated to her job. She would often visit the soldiers at night with a lamp when everyone was asleep just to make sure they were ok. She was then referred to as “The Lady of the Lamp” because she hardly took time off to sleep. Florence became a true hero to the soldiers.
International Council of Nurses (ICN)
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is a federation of more than 130 national nurses associations (NNAs), representing the more than 20 million nurses worldwide. Founded in 1899, ICN is the world’s first and widest reaching international organization for health professionals.
Operated by nurses and leading nurses internationally, ICN works to ensure quality nursing care for all, sound health policies globally, the advancement of nursing knowledge, and the presence worldwide of a respected nursing profession and a competent and satisfied nursing workforce.
ICN’s ever-increasing networks and connections to people reinforce the importance of strong linkages with national, regional and international nursing and non-nursing organizations. Building positive relationships internationally helps position ICN, nurses and nursing for now and the future.
establish the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London in 1860, the first official nursing school in England. Florence traveled to Balaclava in May 1855 to visit hospitals in and around the city. She became ill with “Crimean fever”-probably brucellosis, a bacterial infection that became chronic. She was acutely ill for 12 days, and although she recovered enough to return to Scutari and her duties there, she periodically became chronically ill at least through the 1870s.
The Crimean War ended in February 1856 and in March, Florence returned to Balaclava, staying there until the hospitals closed. She returned privately to England, arriving at Lea Hurst in August. In September, she met with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Balmoral to discuss improvements that should be made to the military hospital system. From 1857 onward, Florence was periodically bedridden as the result of Crimean fever, however, she continued to work-writing, advising, and mentoring.
In 1857, she issued a confidential report on the army medical department during the Crimean War. The next year, she published Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army. In both works, she used statistics to prove her point and was a pioneer in the graphical representation of statistics-the polar area diagram was also known as the Nightingale rose diagram.
International Nurses Day
International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world every May 12, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. ICN commemorates this important day each year with the production and distribution of the International Nurses’ Day (IND) resources and evidence.
ICN themes for International Nurses Day:
- 1988-Safe Motherhood 1989-School
- 1990-Nurses and Environment
- 1991-Mental Health – Nurses in Action
- 1992-Healthy Aging
- 1993-Quality, costs and Nursing
- 1994-Healthy Families for Healthy Nation
- 1995-Women’s Health: Nurses Pave the Way
- 1996- Better Health through Nursing Research
- 1997-Healthy Young People = A Brighter Future
- 1998- Partnership for Community Health
- 1999- Celebrating Nursing’s Past, claiming the future
- 2000-Nurses – Always there for you
- 2001-Nurses, Always There for You: United Against Violence
- 2002-Nurses Always There for You: Caring for Families
- 2003-Nurses: Fighting AIDS stigma, working for all
- 2004- Nurses: Working with the Poor; Against Poverty
- 2005-Nurses for Patients’ Safety: Targeting counterfeit medicines and substandard medication
- 2006-Safe staffing saves lives
- 2007-Positive practice environments: Quality workplaces = quality patient care
- 2008- Delivering Quality, Serving Communities: Nurses Leading Primary Health Care and social care
- 2009-Delivering Quality, Serving Communities: Nurses Leading Care Innovations
- 2010-Delivering Quality, Serving Communities: Nurses Leading Chronic Care
- 2011-Closing The Gap: Increasing Access and Equity
- 2012-Closing The Gap: From Evidence to Action
- 2013-Closing The Gap: Millennium Development Goals
- 2014-Nurses: A Force for Change – A vital resource for health
- 2015-Nurses: A Force for Change: Care Effective, Cost Effective
- 2016 – Nurses: A Force for Change: Improving Health Systems’ Resilience
- 2017 – Nurses: A voice to lead – Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
International Activities
Australia
The Australian Nurse of the Year is announced at a ceremony at one of the state’s capital cities. Additionally, in each of the Australian states and territories, various nursing award ceremonies are conducted during the week.
China
In 2007, 5000 nurses gathered in Yichun, East China’s Jiangxi Province.
Ireland
Since 2012, Nurse Jobs Ireland (an Irish nurse recruitment agency) launch a weeklong pro-bono campaign to celebrate nurses on the 6-12 May every year. This week long celebration uses digital platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to promote the great work nurses do using the hashtag #CelebrateNurses. The public leave their positive comments and thanks on the Celebrate Nurses website where they are collated into an ebook which is shared in medical facilities throughout Ireland.
United Kingdom
Each year a service is held in Westminster Abbey in London. During the Service, a symbolic lamp is taken from the Nurses’ Chapel in the Abbey and handed from one nurse to another, thence to the Dean, who places it on the High Altar. This signifies the passing of knowledge from one nurse to another. At St Margaret’s Church at East Wellow in Hampshire, where Florence Nightingale is buried, a service is also held on the Sunday after her birthday.
U.S. and Canada (National Nursing Week)
The U.S. celebrates National Nursing Week each year from 6 May to 12 May (the birthday of Florence Nightingale). Canada celebrates National Nursing Week each year during the week that includes 12 May. The Canadian Minister of Health instituted National Nursing Week in Canada in 1985. In the U.S., National Nurses Week was first observed from 11-16 October 1954 in honor of the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s mission to Crimea. President Nixon later proclaimed a “National Nurse Week” in 1974.
In 1982, President Reagan signed a proposal officially designating 6 May as “National Recognition Day for Nurses,” now known as National Nurses Day or National RN Recognition Day. In 1990, the American Nurses Association (ANA) expanded the holiday into the current National Nurses Week celebrated from 6 May to 12 May.
In 1997, at the request of the National Student Nurses’ Association, the ANA designated 8 May as National Student Nurses Day. In 2003, the ANA designated the Wednesday within National Nurses Week as National School Nurse Day. The National Association of School Nurses, however, claims that National School Nurse Day has been recognized since 1972.
Singapore
Singapore celebrates Nurses Day on 1 August. Back in the 1800s, a thriving Singapore found itself in need of providing better healthcare and medical services to a growing population. While there were several hospitals, there was a lack of nurses to support the doctors. French nuns from the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus were trained to become nurses to fulfill this need, as they were seen as the only educated European women in Singapore who could undertake this challenge.
1 August 1885 marks the beginning of the development of nursing in Singapore when these nuns began their nursing duties in the General Hospital at the Sepoy Lines in the Outram area.
Taiwan
In 2003, after the outbreak of highly contagious SARS, spread from but hid by China, President Chen Shui-bian visited a hospital on International Nurses Day to express admiration for 3 nurses, infected with SARS and sacrificed, among other medical personnel fighting on the frontline. He conveys wishes to nurses for their devotion to duty of caring and reminded hospital staffs that they should adopt strict precautionary measures to protect themselves before contacting with patients.
At 2017 International Nurses Day celebration, the first female President Tsai Ing-wen conducted a “passing of the torch” ceremony with leaders of the Taiwan Union of Nurses Association and the Taiwan Nurses Association. She honors nurses recognized for outstanding professionalism and service as well as over 2,200 nurses at the event who has been working for over 25 years.
President Tsai expressed deepest respect and gratitude for their contributions to the health of people in Taiwan, and stressed the government has responsibility to increase benefits available to nurses and achieve more reasonable nurse-to-patient ratios and ensure friendlier workplaces.
She also praises Taiwan’s long tradition of providing international medical aid with the participation of nurses and emphasizes the needs to interact with other countries to share experience in nursing care. She emphasizes the nursing profession’s concern for global health is a shared value for all nations.
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