NATIONAL HOSPITAL DAY

Evening Star, Issue 21718, 12 May 1934, Page 4

NATIONAL HOSPITAL DAY

THE LADY WITH A LAMP May 12 is the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. In commemoration of her pioneer work in hospital reform that date is designated National Hospital Hay. The choice of the anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale as our National Hospital Hay was an appropriate one, as it is particularly fitting that not only the entire nation but the whole world should pay homage to one whose life was devoted to the relief of human suffering. In addition to introducing new methods in nursing, “The Lady or the Lamp ” was the pioneer in modern hospital methods. The observance of National Hospital Hay had its inception in America in 1921, and has grown steadily ever since. National Hospital Hay is not one in which collections are made or assistance asked for hospitals, but is held with a view to opening the doors of hospitals and inviting the public to inspect them and take an interest in their own institutions, and it is expected that many thousands will accept such an invitation. They will be impressed deeply and favourably by the cleanliness, the orderliness, and the efficiency of these institutions that offer to the sick and injured of our country an unexcelled service. The public will appreciate the modern hospital more if they take an interest in their own institutions.

Mr W. E. S. Knight, chairman of the Otago Hospital Board, is the chairman' of the National Hospital Day Movement in New Zealand.

The hospital business is not one in which commodities are wrapped in brown paper and sold over a counter, but one that deals in highly specialised services. It is the quality and not the quantity of this service by which hospitals should bo judged. The present day hospitals are products of our own making. They are in line with modern medicine and surgery and the demands of modern life. It is sufficient to say that greater advancement has been made in medicine in the past hundred years than in all previous _ centuries combined. The world is living in an age of unceasing changes which are not confined to any particular group or organisation, and involve hospitals _ and the medical and nursing professions. It is therefore readily understandable that National Hospital Day is one which should be universally observed, and the time when the hospitals should be brought prominently before the public so that they will be reminded of an important service to the community for which they are called upon to pay. Being the birthday of Florence Nightingale, one cannot dissociate particular reference to this Lady of National Hospital Day. The life of Florence Nightingale is one of the great possessions of the English race all the world over. She was born in 1820 and died in 1910. Seventeen years old when Queen Victoria came to the throne, she ended her days with the end of a great epoch. Brought up as a lady of rank in the lap of luxury, she became a courageous tighter for the sick and the oppressed ; though a recluse, and for forty years an invalid, she became a famous public servant of the State ; she was a woman, yet did the work of ten men; she sought for light upon her own concealed path, and, finding it, she became for the human race the “ Lady with a Lamp.” Longfellow chose her title to fame, from the little oil lamp she carried in her hand through the hospital wards at Scutari, not knowing how true and enduring would prove his choice in a far-off time. In the Crimea, in hospital management, in modern nursing, in sanitary reform, in the emancipation of women she became indeed a Ladv with a Lamp. The portion of Florence Nightingale's life as superintendent of the female nursing establishment in the English General Military Hospitals in Turkey, which lasted two years, 'brought her the homage of the world, and there were the remaining fifty years which were filled to the brim with an amazing output of constructive statecraft. It is well known what Miss Nightingale did in the Crimea. As Kinglake. the historian, said: “There acceded' to the State a new power.” Out of the slough of despondency of grave defect and gross neglect she opened the wav to order and efficiency. She put an end to the tortuous ramifications of administrative incapacity and divided responsibility, to the inherent faults of confused systems, to the petty bunglings of minor though grandiose officials, to the scientific ignorance and incorapctency of redtape authority—these were the agencies which went so far to destroy the efficient and healthy armies of Britain by preventable disease and avoidable starvation. “It was not,” said Lytton Strachey. “by gentle sweetness and womanlv sell-abnegation that sbe brought order out of chaos in the Scutari hospitals, that from her own resources she bad clothed the British Army, that she (spread her dominion over the serried and reluctant powers of the official world, it was by strict method by stern discipline, by rigid attention to detail, by ceaseless labour, by the fixed determination of an indomitable will.” Her method was plain. It was the improvement and enlargement of the military hospitals and barracks, the introduction of wise, reliable, and strict administration, effective staff work with competent nurses, the provision of food, clothing, and adequate stores, the regularity and sufficiency of supplies the insistence on sanitation, the establishment of an effective medical service - -and as part of all and through all there was the potent dynamic/if a deep humauiiarianism, of tenderness, ot sympathy, and of hope, of a lamp within as well as in the hand. She was all full of life and fun when she talked to us,” said a soldier, “ especially il a man was a bib downhearted. What a comfort it was to see her pass. She would speak to ono and nod and smile to many more; but she could not do it to all, you know, fie lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell and lay our heads on the pillow again, content.” A year later it was Longfebow who wrote •

Lo! in that house of misery A lady with a lamp I see Pass through the glimmering gloom, And flit from room to room. And slow, as in a dream or bliss, The speechless sufferer turns to kiss Her shadow, as it falls Upon the darkening walls. Amid scenes, of loathsome disease and agonv and death Miss Nightingale brought a spirit of dignity, gentleness, patience, and chivalry, “the sweet presence of a good diffused.” Tu 1856, after those two glorious years of greatness and of goodness, Miss Nightingale, worn out and invalided, passed' into the shelter of a retired life.' But what a retirement! A sick room it is true, but a sick room busy and, bright with the genius of a supreme spirit, active, living, .determined, purposive. Her mind was full of sad memories and iron resolves, “ Nine thousand of my children,” sho

said in 1856 of the soldiers,- in the Crimea, “ are lying in their forgotten graves from causes which might have been prevented. 1 can never forget. . . - The blood of such men is calling to us from the ground, not to avenge them, but to have mercy on their survivors. ... 1 stand at the altar of the murdered men, and while I live I fight their cause.” So the invalid set to work at once to obtain a lioyal Commission on Army medical reform. She wrote her ‘ Notes Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army’ (1857), perhaps the most-re-markable of all her work, “ a gift M-o the Army and to the country altogether priceless.” Two years later came her famous classic, ‘ Notes on Nursing.’ This book became the gospel of the new model of modern nursing, and was translated into many languages. H . influence throughout Europe was so profound that she proved historically to be a pioneer and apostle of modern preventive medicine. Within five years Miss Nightingale's spirit of reform had spread to India, to the Army, to the civilian establishment of sanitary commissions, and to the problem of sanitation in Indian villages. Indeed, it is significant to observe that the more she served the armies of Europe and of India the more she came to see that the only fundamental and radical way of winning a reformation which should endure was first to work for the whole population fr&m which the soldiers were drawn; and, secondly, to work and prepare in time cf peace as well as in time of war. The secret of national health, she learned, is to be found in the homes of the people, and nowhere else. Thus Florence Nightingale became a national adviser and leader, “ a mail of action ” for the new age as well as for the past, and so, fulfilled Longfellow's prophecy;

On England’s annals, through the long Hereafter of her speech and song, That light its rays shall cast From portals of the past. A lady with a lamp shall stand In the great history of the land, A noble type of good, Heroic womanhood.

It may therefore be said that on the example and pioneering - work of this .great woman the modern hospital bases its orderliness, cleanliness, efficiency, and sanitation, and the great medical and nursing service which is built up in the modern hospital may have Jiad its foundations, and thus we celebrate National Hospital Day in order to bring its needs prominently before the public on tbc anniversary of the birthday of this great pioneer—Florence Nightingale.