Today is the International Nurses’ Day for nurses around the world who excel in nursing. May 12 has been declared International Nursing Day, based on the birthday of “Florence Nightingale”, the mother of the nursing profession who has rendered an immortal service to the nursing profession and established it worldwide on a systematic and scientific basis as it exists today. One of the highlights of this year’s International Nursing Day is the 200th birthday of Mrs. Florence Nightingale. ICN commemorates this important day each year with the production and distribution of the International Nurses’ Day (IND) resources and evidence.
The theme for the 2021 resource is Nurses: A Voice to Lead – A vision for future healthcare. Nurses, the world’s largest healthcare force, are currently heavily involved in the global epidemic of COVID-19. There are 36,000 nurses, special grade nurses and public health nurses in the country’s health service who make a direct contribution to the prevention, control, testing and treatment of patients. Despite the fact that International Nursing Day is celebrated every year, this year there will be no major nursing commemoration event in Sri Lanka due to the Covid-19 virus and it has been used to focus on Covid-19 treatment services.
Commencement of nursing
It is no secret that the founder of modern nursing is Florence Nightingale, nicknamed ‘The Lady with the Lamp’. Born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy, the daughter of a wealthy British family, she lived a very comfortable life as a child. When she reaches adolescence, she has an idea that she should do something for the helpless people. At that time there was no subject in the world called nursing. Since there is a hospital in Germany that trains women to care for patients, she intends to go there and receive the necessary training, but her family does not approve of it. However, due to her strong desire and courage, she was finally able to go to Germany for this training. Accordingly, Florence left for training in 1851 and entered his career in 1854.
History has it that the hospital where she worked in London, when there was no such thing as a nursing profession, was completely reorganized and dedicated to caring for patients. Meanwhile, she has the opportunity to care for the wounded in the Crimean War. For this she leaves for the Crimea with another group. History tells us that Florence was dedicated to treating wounded soldiers day and night. She is nicknamed the “Lady with a Lamp” because she carries a lamp at night and seeks to heal the wounded. She also directly contributes to the establishment of nursing training schools to provide proper nursing training, henceforth taking the initiative to make the nursing profession an official profession with proper recognition.
So, on this International Nurses’ Day, we would like to thank all the nurses who have worked tirelessly to defeat the corona virus in hospitals around the world.
