Africa’s nurses have cured their calling of Nightingale’s racist legacy
They have adapted colonial methods to meet local needs, making their Covid-19 fight far more effective
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. It’s therefore understandable that it’s being marked as the year of the nurse and midwife (https://www.who.int/campaigns/year-of-the-nurse-and-the-midwife-2020).
Nightingale is best known (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Nightingale) for her pioneering spirit and fearless approach to changing atrocious conditions and improving health-care service delivery. These qualities still characterise the attitudes and habits of nurses around the world. They are often the only front-line health-care workers caring for people, whether they are vulnerable and living in poor and isolated settings or well-off in rich parts of the world.
But Nightingale left two legacies. The other is less known...
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