Florence Nightingale Research Paper

Florence Nightingale- A Pioneer in Human Healthcare and in the Idea of Orphanages
Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy British family at the Villa Colombaia in Florence, Italy. She was inspired by what she thought to be a divine calling. At the age of 17 at Embley Park, Nightingale made a commitment to nursing and human healthcare. This decision demonstrated strong will on her part in that she was willing to go beyond normality. It had constituted a rebellion against the expected role for women at that time, which was to become an obedient and humble wife. Nursing was a career with a poor reputation during that period of time. It was filled mostly by poor women, called "hangers-on", who had followed the armies when in war or in hardship. Nightingale announced her decision about nursing to her family in 1845,
causing intense anger and distress from her entire family.
Nightingale was concerned with the horrific conditions of medical care for the masses of the poor and ignorant.
It is said that the sole reason that she became a nurse was in order for her to gain the ability to take care of those who needed help, especially those like the poor who had no shelter to live under and children in need. In 1844, in a response to a pauper's death in an infirmary in London that became a public scandal, Nightingale became a leading advocate for improving medical care in the infirmaries. She had immediately engaged the support of Charles Villiers who was the president of the Poor Law Board at the time. These events led to her active role in the reform of the Poor Laws which extended far beyond the provision of medical care.
Nightingale's career in nursing began in 1851 when she received short period training (about 4 months) in Germany as a deaconess of Kaiserswerth. Nightingale took the training over her torqued family objections concerning the social implications of such activity within the social structure. While at Kaiserswerth, it is said that she had her most compelling experience of her "divine calling" to help
others.
In 1853, Nightingale became the superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London. Also at that time, her father had given her an annual income of £500 (roughly $50,000) that allowed her to live comfortably. It is also said that with this money, Nightingale had shared with those in need of food or clothing. She would stand outside a bakery and buy food as people who were hungry would pass her. Florence Nightingale's most famous contribution came during the Crimean War. Nightingale's central focus were reports that she began to filter back to Britain about the horrific conditions for the sick and wounded. On October 21, 1854, she, with a staff of 38 women volunteers, were sent (under the authorization of Sidney Herbert) to Turkey. Nightingale arrived early in November 1854 in Scutari (modern-day Üsküdar in Istanbul). She and her volunteers found wounded soldiers and children being badly cared for by overworked medical staff who felt indifferent about the situation at hand. Medicine was in mass short supply and hygiene was being neglected. Mass infections were common in that area, many of them fatal. And to put things into an even better perspective, there was no equipment to process food for those in need.
Nightingale and her helpers began thoroughly cleaning the equipment and hospitals as well as reorganizing patient care. But during her time at Scutari, the death rate did not drop. It began to rise. Her dream of helping others began to dwindle, she was actually achieving the opposite of what she had set out to do. Conditions were fatal because patients had to deal with the overcrowding and the hospital's defective sewers. Alongside those defects, there was a major lack of ventilation which led to an easy way for viruses and air-born molecules to accumulate. A sanitary commission had to be sent in March 1855, about six months after Nightingale had arrived, which flushed out the sewers, improved ventilation, and made more rooms for more area for patients. It is then where death rates were severely reduced. Nightingale continued believing the death rates were due to poor nutrition and the lack of supplies as well as the overworking of the soldiers. All of this hadn't stopped under after she returned to Britain and began collecting evidence before the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army. She came to conclusions that most of the soldiers at the hospital were killed by poor living conditions. From this, it can be concluded that her most important new task at the time was to improve living conditions of all people. This experience would influence her later career, when she advocated sanitary living conditions as of great importance. Nightingale's impact in the world of healthcare is resounding. Because of her people started to take on the idea of caring for people properly. Her belief in helping poor children spurred the creation of orphanages. As a result, the Maryvale Orphanage in Rosemead, California opened up in the late 1800s. Maryvale is among the first orphanages ever made and the first in California. Therefore, Nightingale's contribution is not only felt in the world of hospitals and nursing, but also in the world of orphanages. Nightingale strived for the improvement of sanitary conditions. Not only did she have a great care for those cleanliness affairs, but from this she branched off many new hospitals in order to create more healthy areas were all people could achieve that dosage of medicine that she believed everyone needed. It is only obvious to say that all people gain their beliefs in her stature. Nightingale had become the first person of her time and all history that declared the rights of being human as the most important law of all people. She granted the fundamental belief that all people have the right to live in at least the minimal living conditions. Nightingale had set up plenty of new hospitals, orphanages, and just old-people homes where all types of people would be able to get whatever they had needed to sustain a life. In essence, she set a great example for people everywhere of compassion and commitment to all human care.