Florence Nightingale - a Pioneer in Human Healthcare and in the Idea of Orphanages

Florence Nightingale- A Pioneer in Human Healthcare and in the Idea of Orphanages

Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy British family at the Villa Colombaia in Florence, Italy. She was inspired by what she thought to be a divine calling. At the age of 17 at Embley Park, Nightingale made a commitment to nursing and human healthcare. This decision demonstrated strong will on her part in that she was willing to go beyond normality. It had constituted a rebellion against the expected role for women at that time, which was to become an obedient and humble wife. Nursing was a career with a poor reputation during that period of time. It was filled mostly by poor women, called "hangers-on", who had followed the armies when in war or in hardship. Nightingale announced her decision about nursing to her family in 1845, causing intense anger and distress from her entire family.

Nightingale was concerned with the horrific conditions of medical care for the masses of the poor and ignorant. It is said that the sole reason that she became a nurse was in order for her to gain the ability to take care of those who needed help, especially those like the poor who had no shelter to live under and children in need. In 1844, in a response to a pauper's death in an infirmary in London that became a public scandal, Nightingale became a leading advocate for improving medical care in the infirmaries. She had immediately engaged the support of Charles Villiers who was the president of

the Poor Law Board at the time. These events led to her active role in the reform of the Poor Laws which extended far beyond the provision of medical care.

Nightingale's career in nursing began in 1851 when she received short period training (about 4 months) in Germany as a deaconess of Kaiserswerth. Nightingale took the training over her torqued family objections concerning the social implications of such activity within the social structure. While at Kaiserswerth, it is said that she had her most compelling experience of her "divine calling" to help others.

In 1853, Nightingale became the superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London. Also at that time, her father had given her an annual income of Ј500 (roughly $50,000) that allowed her to live comfortably. It is also said that with this money, Nightingale had shared with those in need of food or clothing. She would stand outside a bakery and buy food as people who were hungry would pass her.

Florence Nightingale's most famous contribution came during the Crimean War. Nightingale's central focus were reports that she began to filter back to Britain about the horrific conditions for the sick and wounded. On October 21, 1854, she, with a staff of 38 women volunteers, were sent (under the authorization of Sidney Herbert) to Turkey. Nightingale arrived early in November 1854 in Scutari (modern-day Ьskьdar in Istanbul). She and her volunteers found wounded soldiers and children being badly cared for by overworked medical staff who felt indifferent about the situation at hand. Medicine was in mass short supply and hygiene was being neglected. Mass infections were common in that area, many of them fatal. And to put things into an even better perspective, there was no equipment to process food for those in need.

Nightingale and her helpers began thoroughly cleaning the equipment and hospitals as well as reorganizing patient care. But during her time at Scutari, the death rate did not drop. It began to rise. Her dream of helping others began to dwindle, she was actually achieving the opposite of what she had set out to do. Conditions were fatal because patients had to deal with the overcrowding and the hospital's