The year of
Nightingales BY LLOYD GORMAN Even before the Coronavirus pandemic hit and put hospital and healthcare workers on the frontline, 2020 was meant to be the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife. The World Health Organisation set aside this year to mark an important anniversary in the world of nursing. Exactly two hundred years ago on May 12, Florence Nightingale - the world's most famous nurse - was born in Florence, Italy to English parents, who never wanted her to become a nurse because it was not seen as a safe or respectable occupation for a lady. She would change that perception and nursing forever. The WHO said nurses and midwives play a vital role in providing health services. They devote their lives to caring for mothers and children; giving lifesaving immunizations and health advice; looking after older people and generally meeting everyday essential health needs and are often, the first and only point of care in their communities. According to the WHO, nurses and midwives make up nearly 50 per cent of the global health workforce. But if the Organisation’s target of universal health coverage globally by 2030 is going to be reached, the world will need nine million more nurses and midwives in the next decade. "That’s why the World Health Assembly has designated 2020 the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife," the WHO said. There is an Irish and Australian connection with Nightingale. She is best known for her pioneering medical treatment and care she provided to wounded and dying soldiers who also died in large numbers from disease and dirty conditions in the Crimean War (1853 to 1856). She called out for other carers to help her in this work and she was helped by two waves of Irish nuns - the Sisters of Mercy. The leader of the first group of nuns was one Sister Mary Clare Moore (born Dublin 1814), who became Nightingale’s right
Left: Irish nurse Vivien Lusted receiving the Nightingale Medal in 2019. hand at that time and the two women became devoted life long friends. Interestingly Sister Clare met Catherine McAuley when she was sixteen and would join McAuley at her Institute on Bagot Street, visiting the sick and poor in their homes and hospitals. When McAuley formed the Sisters of Mercy as a religious community in 1830, Mary Clare joined her. Mary Clare was training in intensive care nursing when the first great cholera epidemic broke out in Dublin in 1832. Sisters Clare and McAuley, like others in the order, worked long hours under difficult conditions with the poor and sick hit by the disease. In 1868, six “Nightingale” nurses accepted an invitation to come to Australia to establish a training school at Sydney Hospital. In 1907 (Nightingale died in 1910), the Hungarian Red Cross Society proposed that a special medal for women who had distinguished themselves in the care of the sick and wounded should be awarded as world wide tribute to Florence Nightingale, and it was introduced in 1912. In 1992, the rules were changed so that male nurses could also receive the medal. More than 40 Australian nurses have been awarded the Nightingale medal. Just five Irish nurses have ever received the distinction, including Galway woman Vivien Lusted in 2019. A lifelong nurse, she had served in war torn countries such as Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria and Myanmar with the Red Cross.
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