Florence Nightingale

• who owned Medieval hospitals and how were they run

  30% owned by Church, run by nuns and monks, treatment = rest + prayer, provided hospitality for poor + pilgrims. e.g. St Bartholomew's
• Changes to hospitals in renaissance period


  some medicine, visits from a doctor or physician, good diet, for sick people. pest houses- people payed to isolate here
• Dissolution of monasteries


  1530s, Henry VIII split from Catholic Church and created Church of England- reformation. dissolved monasteries so very few hospitals left in England. new hospitals NOT run by Church
• Hopsitals in the 18th century- positives


  patients often working class (poor now had access to healthcare!), often visited by a doctor, surgeon or apothecary on site, treated the sick, separate wards for infectious patients
• Hospitals in the 18th century- negatives

  nurses = untrained + had a bad rep (lower class- drinking), busy so not very sanitary or strict with admitting infectious patients, separate wards = ineffective as doctors treated all patients without washing hands, few toilets + sewerage = poor
• Florence Nightingale biography


  1853- became superintendent of nurses at King's College Hospital

  1854- Britain went to war with Russia in the Crimea. national outcry at state of hospitals e.g. lack of bandages + nurses. Florence convinced gov to send her and 38 other nurses to improve conditions
• changes Nightingale made to Scutari. death rate?

  demanded 300 scrubbing brushes. provided good meals, fresh bed sheets, ventilation and general cleanliness for patients. death rate fell from 40% to 2% in her hospital
• impact: nursing (training + status)

  Nightingale set up her first Nightingale School for Nurses in 1860 at St Thomas' hospital in London. her publications explained the importance and necessity of thorough training for nurses. it became seen as a respectable occupation as it was now a skilled profession (+ mainly middle class)
• impact: building of hospitals

  new hospitals were built with materials that were easy to wash down e.g. tiles on the floors + painted walls and ceilings. F.N. supported/encouraged the building of pavilion style hospitals which had separate wards for infectious diseases and aided ventilation
• impact: conditions in hospitals

  ventilation (F.N. believed in miasma), sanitation (clean water, toilet facilities), good drainage/sewage system. general cleanliness- thought ability to keep an area clean was most important role of nurse
• publications


  1859- Notes on Nursing

  1863- Notes of Hospitals
• hospitals by 1900


  separate wards for infectious patients, discovery of germs meant antiseptics were used to clean up germs, doctors = much more common + nurses lived in nearby provided houses, funded by taxes + donations, surgical procedures took place in separate operating theatres with medical equipment
• 1900 hospital types


  cottage hospitals, Pavilion style hospitals, workhouse hospitals