Nurses on the Front Lines
Image: Wikimedia Commons
A happy belated 200th birthday (May 12) to Florence Nightingale! Though you may have missed giving thanks for her life on that day, plan to do so on August 13, the day our Church commemorates her life and work as a renewer of society.
Florence Nightingale was called “Lady with the Lamp” by British soldiers in the military hospital in the Crimea because of her practice of making evening rounds to comfort and care for them. Her work to combat the unsanitary conditions of that facility resulted in reducing the death rate by two-thirds. But by age 38, she herself had become homebound because of the brucellosis infection she contracted there. She continued to advocate for sanitary conditions in hospitals from her home in England by receiving visitors at her bedside and by writing on the subject – a testimony to the potential power of working from home when necessary!
She was an 1851 graduate of the nursing school of the Institute of Protestant Deaconesses in Kaiserswerth, Germany—the same community from which William Passavant brought four deaconesses to Pittsburgh in 1849 to support hospital work here. The pioneering work that Florence Nightingale advanced in providing quality care for hospital patients reflects the same creative pursuit of a better future that led William Passavant to found the Old People’s Home in Zelienople, now Passavant Community.
These days, when we hear how so many nursing homes across the country have been devastated by the coronavirus, we rejoice that as of this writing the residential facility in Zelienople that bears Passavant’s name has found no cases of Covid-19 among its residents.
I talked with Laura Roy and Debbie McMurdy to learn more about that. Laura is the Executive Director of Passavant Community and Debbie is the Independent Living RN and Infection Preventionist for the residents and staff. They described how their 20-year working relationship helped them make the difficult decisions to restrict visitation and require staff to use personal protective equipment some time before these became common practices.
I heard in their voices how the power of trusting teamwork and full concentration on the mission makes bearing the pain of hard decisions possible for those in leadership. And I recalled reading that Florence Nightingale did not work alone. In 1854, when she was charged by British Secretary of War Sidney Herbert to tend to the hospitalized soldiers in the Crimea, she assembled a team of three dozen nurses from a variety of religious orders to answer the call.
As we commemorate the life and work of Florence Nightingale this August, let us also give thanks for the dedicated teams of nurses and directors and all leaders whose difficult and diligent work continues to renew our society.
Bishop Kurt F. Kusserow
Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod Bishop
kurt.kusserow@swpasynod.org | 412-367-8222