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THE LIFE OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE ARTICLE WRITTEN BY HANNA CHRZANOWSKA 1940
A SHORT LIFE HISTORY OF MARY SEACOLE BY MARY FARNAN
THE LIFE OF EDITH CAVELL BY FR MICHAEL STACK
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE MUSEUM ON THE LIFE OF MARY SEACOLE
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE MUSEUM ON THE LIFE OF EDITH CAVELL
HOLY NURSES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Gosia Brykczynska
Gosia Brykczynska
Many saints from the earliest apostolic times have been known to nurse the sick, care for the frail elderly, and help women in childbirth and most of them were men in monastic orders. But until recently, very few registered nurses that is, women who trained to practice their profession by attending a registered nursing school and sitting qualifying examinations, have been beatified or canonised by the Catholic Church. This is mainly because nursing as a formal profession was not organised and regulated until the late 1800s and nurse registration and nursing acts did not come into effect in Europe and North America till the 1920s and in many other countries considerably later. The Registration of Nurses’ Act in the United Kingdom occurred in 1919.
Up until that time patients in hospitals were nursed either by auxiliaries (who were mostly men) under the authority of physicians, with varying degrees of effectiveness, or by dedicated religious sisters/brothers – who were members of protestant or Catholic nursing communities – a service provided with a lot of care and concern and religious support but often with little professional competency. A recent example of such generous and dedicated nursing care was provided by Blessed Sister Marta Wiecka, DC (1874-1904), a Vincentian nursing sister who worked in several municipal hospitals in Galicia, Southern Poland in the 1890s (then a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). She was beatified in the Ukraine in 2008. Likewise St Bernadette Soubirous was engaged in nursing the sick in the hospital run by her order, in Nevers, as were many other saints. Meanwhile, both St Damian of Molokai and Bl Jan Bejzym in Madagascar ,who were both priests, nursed with exceptional care and compassion leprosy patients – without any real professional preparation
In the 1900s, inspired by the pioneering work of Florence Nightingale who established the first school of nursing in England in 1860, and who saw nursing as a primarily female profession, changes were introduced in the way women were prepared for nursing work and organised training was provided for them. Schools of nursing were established alongside secular hospitals, a pattern repeated around the world. The Schools became affiliated to major (teaching) hospitals and for the first time it was possible for young (mostly) women to study nursing while not being religious nursing sisters themselves. Needless to say, the religious nursing orders soon started running professional nursing schools themselves, in order to provide expert care themselves and to train up lay Catholic nurses to work in their Catholic hospitals.
As noted, until the mid-twentieth century professional nurse training was geared towards women, for a long time men were only admitted to formal training as psychiatric nurses– which is one of the reasons why the inspired holy work of St John of God in Spain and of St Camillus in Italy was so invaluable. Meanwhile, these new secular schools of nursing started to produce the first cohorts of lay Catholic nurses some of whom are now being considered as candidates for sainthood, such as Blessed Hanna Chrzanowska, who graduated her nursing school in Warsaw in 1924 and sat her State registration examination in 1926. Hanna went on to become a community nurse tutor and set up in her retirement Parish Nursing.
Religious nursing orders benefited from these new training opportunities. Both Blessed Sister Zdenka Cecilia in Slovakia and Blessed Sister Maria Euthymiain Germany were sent to nursing schools by their communities and subsequently worked as registered nurses in hospitals. Meanwhile, St Elizabeth Hasselblad is an example of someone who graduated from an established school of nursing in Manhattan, New York, but never really practiced her profession. She had another calling – that of renewing the Bridgettine Order. The International Red Cross which runs short courses in casualty nursing and military/disaster medicine also administers regular schools of nursing, thereby contributing to the increase in trained nursing personnel. Many women and men trained this way and went on to nurse in war zones, some of them becoming victims of the wars themselves, such as Blessed Pilar Gullón, Blessed Olga Monteserín, and Blessed Octavia Iglesias, three lay Red Cross trained nurses – who were killed for their faith during the Spanish Civil War – ironically because they were mistaken for religious nursing sisters...Although not strictly considered to be registered nurses, they died as martyrs because they were working as Catholic nurses in a public hospital.
Blessed Sister Leonella Sgorbati, an Italian Consolata missionary sister also died as a martyr for the Catholic faith, while working as a midwifery nurse tutor, in an Islamist hostile environment in Mogadishu, Somalia. She obtained her nursing qualifications in England and her midwifery training in I Ireland. The list of saints and blesseds who worked as registered nurses/midwives, is nor fixed. There are currently several canonisation causes in progress of nurses and midwives awaiting the final verdict of the Dicastery for Causes of Saints and the clear evidence of Divine approval, as evidenced by a miracle. These holy nurses reflect engagements in various fields of work from tropical medicine and contagious diseases e.g. those who worked with leprosy patients, to midwifery, as was Servant of God Stanislawa Leszczyńska who worked as a midwife in Auschwitz.
It is hoped that nurses everywhere together with their friends and families will be encouraged and enriched by the beauty of the lives of these dedicated healthcare workers who have been recognised as holy by the Church. It’s not easy to work as a committed Catholic nurse – something noted and commented upon by Blessed Hanna, but it is certainly rewarding and sanctifying work.
What dignity belongs to our profession ! Christ in us serves Christ in the other person’
Blessed Hanna Chrzanowska
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