What’s Inside This Story:

• The History of Nursing

• Important Note about Florence Nightingale

• How Nursing Started in Uganda

• Important Point to Remember

• Explanations of Some Words

The History of Caring for the Sick

• From the beginning, people have felt the need to care for those who are sick, especially children and family members. Eventually, this care extended to whole communities. One of the first nurses we know about is a woman named Phoebe. The Bible mentions her in the book of Romans. She was sent to Rome to look after people who were ill, both men and women, in the early days of the Christian church.
• Before nursing became a modern profession, people in religious orders (like nuns) and in the military often provided care that was similar to nursing.
• The Christian church played a big role in supporting nursing for a long time and helped develop the ideas we have about right and wrong in nursing today. Other cultures, like those in Islamic countries, also had their own traditions of nursing.
• In the past, nursing wasn’t always seen as important or respected. But when Christianity became widely accepted in the Roman Empire, more care was provided to the sick, and people started to recognize its value.
• Around 1852, a famous woman named Florence Nightingale began working as a nurse in hospitals. This happened partly because there were wars going on and many women in the UK didn’t have jobs.

• In 1853, Florence Nightingale is often seen as the founder of modern nursing. She was very important in making hospitals cleaner and safer. During the Crimean War, she worked in a hospital for soldiers in Turkey. Because of her efforts to improve hygiene, the number of soldiers dying there dropped dramatically, from almost 43% to just 22% in six months.
• Florence Nightingale believed that nursing really started to become what it is today around the 1810s. Before that, people didn’t understand much about how infections spread during medical treatments and surgeries. Surgery was mostly done in emergencies, like amputations, and many people died because of the poor conditions.
• In 1855, she wrote down her ideas about nursing and what she learned in hospitals. She wanted her methods to continue, so she introduced changes that improved the care of sick people all over the world.
• In the 1860s, she opened the Nightingale Training School for nurses in London at St Thomas’ Hospital. She used the books and notes she had written to teach the nurses.
• Her school became a model for others. Schools in the United States and other countries started using her way of training nurses. Missionaries also played a role in bringing nursing to Africa, and a woman named Lady Catherine Cook helped introduce it to Uganda.

Important Note

• Florence Nightingale felt very strongly that nursing was like a religious calling. She believed a nurse should be completely dedicated, like someone devoted to their religion. She inspired this strong sense of dedication in the nurses who followed her.
• Because the first groups of trained nurses were all women, people began to think of nursing as mainly a woman’s job.
• However, men were also involved in nursing in the past. We know that men were providing basic nursing care as far back as the 17th century, sometimes as a form of punishment.
• A woman named Mrs. Bedford Fenwick realized that nursing involved a special body of knowledge. She believed that if nurses were trained to a high standard, nursing could become a true profession. Because of her work, today, people all over the world have to go through specific training and education to become recognized as a nurse.

The Nightingale Pledge

This is a promise that nurses often make:

“I solemnly promise before God and everyone here to live my life purely and practice my profession faithfully. I will stay away from anything harmful or bad, and I will not give or knowingly allow anyone to give harmful drugs. I will do everything I can to keep my profession at a high standard. I will keep private all personal information and family matters that I learn while caring for people. I will loyally help doctors in their work and dedicate myself to the well-being of those in my care.”

How Nursing Started in Uganda

Nursing in Uganda began in 1919 with Lady Catherine Cook. She was married to Dr. Albert Cook.

In November 1896, Dr. Albert Cook, who was a skilled doctor, and other Christians, including a group of 12 people from a church organization, traveled from Mombasa to Uganda. One of these 12 people was Catherine Thompson, who was a nurse. Dr. Albert Cook later married her.

In 1897, Dr. Albert Cook started training people in basic medical care during World War I (1914-1918). He trained people to be medical assistants and male nurses in Uganda.

Dr. Albert Cook set up his first clinic and training center at Mengo Hill, under a mango tree. This was the first hospital in Uganda and was later built into what is now Mengo Hospital.

In 1919, Lady Catherine Cook, recognizing the great need for help with childbirth, started training women to be midwives at Mengo. These women didn’t have formal education.

In the 1920s, the first qualified midwives in Uganda were trained in the local language, Luganda, with the help of interpreters. They had a big responsibility in local maternity centers, often far from medical help and without transportation to take patients to hospitals. They were clever enough to create traditional stretchers, which are still useful today in areas that are hard to reach.

Formal nursing training at an enrolled level began in 1930. The first group of qualified nurses finished their training in 1933. They were trained outside of Mengo Hospital in a place called Ndeje, about 30 miles from Kampala. Later, the training program was moved to Mengo Hospital to be alongside the midwifery training.

The course was three years long, and to be accepted, students needed to have completed primary school up to a certain level. The exams were managed by the Uganda medical services.

Nursing training in English didn’t start until 1947. By 1950, girls who had completed secondary school up to a certain level were being accepted into training. The trainees were known for being disciplined.

In 1955, training for nurses who cared for babies started at Ssanyu babies’ home in Mengo. Then, on December 4, 1956, the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council was created. This council took over the responsibility of training all nurses and midwives.

Nursing training was then extended to 3 years and 3 months but was later reduced to 3 years, and now it is usually 2 and a half years.

Important Point to Remember

Mengo Hospital was the very first hospital built in Uganda.