The day nurses went on strike while patients languished in the hospital for medical care, I couldn’t help but remember Florence Nightingale.
More recently, as we cried over a dying patient being denied medical care and shown the exit from hospitals, I couldn’t help but remember Florence Nightingale.
Heart of Nightingale
Way back in our primary school days, we read about Florence Nightingale and her passion for the sick and for reforms in medical delivery.
We were told that anybody who chooses to be a nurse must have the heart of Florence Nightingale, who had the heart of Christ when it came to dealing with patients.
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) was a British global role model for all nurses, because “she revolutionised health care by enforcing strict hygiene, sanitation and nutrition standards, which dramatically reduced mortality rates”.
Known as the “founder of modern nursing”, she was nicknamed “Lady with the Lamp” because she literally carried a lamp at night, checking on wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, when Russia fought an alliance of European nations.
Credit is due
We admit that doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians and other health personnel deserve commendation for delivering medical care as service to the nation.
Those who have been attended to before by medical personnel must give credit to them for their service. Particularly, inpatients should recall how, while we recuperated on hospital beds, the doctors and nurses waited on us, administering medication to ensure that we got well.
I remember the nurses who dispensed drugs to me every morning on a hospital bed, checked and recorded my health situation, straightened the bedsheets, and even fetched water for my bathing.
Sometimes, in a rural hospital or clinic where modern amenities are limited, health personnel manage with what they have in those harsh conditions. To such hardworking and compassionate health workers, we say kudos with God’s blessing.
Thus, we are not about to throw away the baby with the bathwater or condemn our health personnel without reservation or exceptions.
But, while we applaud health workers for their service, we cannot overlook incidents where sheer negligence, impatience, heartlessness, and lack of compassion lead to avoidable deaths.
The uproar of the nation and the outcry of entities, families and individuals over the recent negligence of health personnel who failed to extend a much-needed care that could have saved a patient shows how we detest such disregard for human life.
Nightingale act
If Florence Nightingale were a nurse sitting at the nurses’ table and an accident victim were rushed in for medical attention, she would not say, “There is no bed here!”
If she had to place the patient on the floor to offer emergency treatment, she would do it—because she had the heart to serve. (Before we slept on beds, we used to sleep on the floor!).
She believed that human beings are “co-workers” with God in bringing healing to people.
Nightingale was a prolific author who had to her credit over 200 publications on nursing and hospital management. Notable among them was her work,
Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not.
This book highlights the principles and practices of nursing and gives practical counsel on patient care. It insists that hygiene and a healthy environment promote patient recovery.
Believing that marriage would interfere with her life, Nightingale, though pretty and charming, never got married. She rejected several proposals to dedicate her life to nursing and social reforms.
Her spirituality
Though Florence Nightingale read her Bible daily, she could not be described as an evangelical Christian the way contemporary believers define zeal for personal salvation that embraces the divinity of Jesus and the kingdom of God.
Hers was a preference for practical Christian action.
She is quoted as saying, “Prayer should be for God to tell us what to do, not to tell God what he should do!”
Like Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Nightingale believed that faith was made real by serving the poor and suffering—as James says: “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:17).
One action of faith is better than a thousand faith without action.
Hence, the Lord Jesus would one day charge people, “I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me” (Matthew 25:43).
Every time we turn away from the vulnerable, we are turning away from God.
In that case, the warning in Proverbs 21:13 becomes the consequence of neglecting the needy: “If you ignore the poor when they cry for help, you also will cry for help and not be answered.”
Of course, not every nurse will become like Florence Nightingale, but every nurse can learn from her and brighten their individual corners, bringing comfort to patients.
The writer is a publisher, author, writer-trainer and CEO of Step Publishers.
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Source:
www.graphic.com.gh
