Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2020 7:56:30 GMT
Tonight, as I was scrubbing a toilet at work, I reflected on Florence Nightingale.
Why did scrubbing a toilet make me think of her? Because she founded what is now known as asceptic technique. Part of the first nurses' responsibility was janitorial. They scrubbed floors, cupboards, dusted, opened windows, and made sure garbage and debri was removed. In an era when women were limited in what kind of work they did, and NEVER as a physician, she created controversy by telling doctors they needed to wash their hands and change gloves between patients. She used the available science of the day and observation to record how illness was being transmitted between patients, in a time when we were in the infancy of understanding such things.
This was just not done in the Victorian era, and she was laughed at and reprimanded by the men of her day for even questioning them. In the end, her methods could not be disputed.
So tonight a patient requested her toilet be cleaned because her former roommate had vomited in it and got it on the seat and the floor. The housekeeper who we called, who was clearly terrified of being on the psych unit, mopped the floor and then hauled ass out the door. When the patient pointed out the toilet, I wasn't left with much of a choice. I was in the middle of trying to call a doctor, but it wasn't an urgent matter. Everyone else was either busy or pretended not to hear me. So I grabbed the industrial strength sanitizing wipes and off I went...
As I was on my knees in front of the bowl, Ms. Nightingale was clearly in my mind. I reminded myself of everything I knew about her, and how what I was doing now, was, in fact, my job. I would like to think I would have been good enough to be one of her nurses during the Crimean War.
"I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse."
--Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers.[3] She gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night...
Her social reforms included improving healthcare for all sections of British society, advocating better hunger relief in India, helping to abolish prostitution laws that were harsh for women, and expanding the acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce (Wikipedia)
Her social reforms included improving healthcare for all sections of British society, advocating better hunger relief in India, helping to abolish prostitution laws that were harsh for women, and expanding the acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce (Wikipedia)
Why did scrubbing a toilet make me think of her? Because she founded what is now known as asceptic technique. Part of the first nurses' responsibility was janitorial. They scrubbed floors, cupboards, dusted, opened windows, and made sure garbage and debri was removed. In an era when women were limited in what kind of work they did, and NEVER as a physician, she created controversy by telling doctors they needed to wash their hands and change gloves between patients. She used the available science of the day and observation to record how illness was being transmitted between patients, in a time when we were in the infancy of understanding such things.
This was just not done in the Victorian era, and she was laughed at and reprimanded by the men of her day for even questioning them. In the end, her methods could not be disputed.
Florence was also consumed with advancing the causes of cleanliness in the hospital setting and beyond by using the newly developed mathematical methods of statistics to prove that such interventions made a difference.
Beginning with her war work, Nightingale noted that 10 times more soldiers died of the so-called filth diseases, such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid and typhus, than those who succumbed to bullets and cannon balls. She determined the cause to be related to the overcrowding of soldiers, paltry latrine and sewer facilities and, in an era when "poisonous miasmas" were still thought to the source of many infectious diseases, poor ventilation in the hospital wards. Indeed, her insistence on adequate ventilation led to a worldwide trend of building hospitals with large windows and cross-ventilation schemes, a design one can still see in the few 19th century hospital buildings that remain in various American and European cities."
www.pbs.org/newshour/health/florence-nightingale-cleaned-hell-earth-hospitals-became-international-hero
Beginning with her war work, Nightingale noted that 10 times more soldiers died of the so-called filth diseases, such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid and typhus, than those who succumbed to bullets and cannon balls. She determined the cause to be related to the overcrowding of soldiers, paltry latrine and sewer facilities and, in an era when "poisonous miasmas" were still thought to the source of many infectious diseases, poor ventilation in the hospital wards. Indeed, her insistence on adequate ventilation led to a worldwide trend of building hospitals with large windows and cross-ventilation schemes, a design one can still see in the few 19th century hospital buildings that remain in various American and European cities."
www.pbs.org/newshour/health/florence-nightingale-cleaned-hell-earth-hospitals-became-international-hero
So tonight a patient requested her toilet be cleaned because her former roommate had vomited in it and got it on the seat and the floor. The housekeeper who we called, who was clearly terrified of being on the psych unit, mopped the floor and then hauled ass out the door. When the patient pointed out the toilet, I wasn't left with much of a choice. I was in the middle of trying to call a doctor, but it wasn't an urgent matter. Everyone else was either busy or pretended not to hear me. So I grabbed the industrial strength sanitizing wipes and off I went...
As I was on my knees in front of the bowl, Ms. Nightingale was clearly in my mind. I reminded myself of everything I knew about her, and how what I was doing now, was, in fact, my job. I would like to think I would have been good enough to be one of her nurses during the Crimean War.
"I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse."
--Florence Nightingale
