Nursing service publicly appreciated

Among the professions now practised by both men and women today, none holds a higher and more important place than nursing. It is true that the restoration of health to those who have been sick or have met with serious traffic or industrial accidents is as much due to the skill of the doctors and surgeons as it is to professional nursing.

The importance of nursing in the science of healing cannot be overemphasised. Although there had been nursing of some kind through the centuries, it was really Florence Nightingale, the indefatigable and distinguished Englishwoman who raised nursing to the rank of a profession and placed it on a scientific basis. The Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas' Hospital in London has trained many of the finest nurses.

All those young men and women who aspire to join the respectable nursing profession would do well to be acquainted with the life and sterling work of that famous woman. She was affectionately known by the wounded soldiers in the Crimean War of 1854 as the "Lady with the lamp". She so lovingly and bravely nursed them. Her contribution to nursing was not only womanly tenderness and personal endurance; to it she added organising abilities and unequalled efficiency. Indeed, she is the ideal role model for prospective and serving nurses!

Whether in the operating theatre, where professional nursing staff assist the highly skilled surgeons in performing delicate operations, or in the intensive therapy unit where constant vigilance of the patients' precarious health is required, the nurses' caring attention is never lacking. Nursing duties in the wards, during daytime or at night, are strenuous and exhausting; but conditions being normal, individual help to the sick is likewise never wanting.

To be qualified as a registered nurse, the aspirant has to undergo a four- year course at the university, at the end of which the successful student is awarded a Diploma or Degree in B.Sc. Nursing Studies. The tender care and humanitarian zeal are thus made of real value by the scientific training and practical experience.

It is to be recalled that the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta were at first a purely nursing order. Their duties included assistance and care of the weary and sick pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land and back.

During the course, students learn about the miracle of the human body, its healthy function and the mysterious working of the brain. They also learn about its frailty. In this context, one may recall Shakespeare's Hamlet when the latter marvellously exclaims: "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In forms and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!"

Never before has the nursing profession stood so high in public estimations, and this is due to the fact that nurses were never before so highly trained and skilled.