Help Us Celebrate National Nurses Day on Friday, May 6th!

Join Swope Health Services as we offer special thanks to our nursing team and celebrate National Nurses Day on Friday, May 6.

At SHS, our nurses will receive a special card and a gift to mark our appreciation of their work in caring for patients and advocating on their behalf. Our nurses will be recognized in an afternoon event, featuring a program on Florence Nightingale.

National Nurses Day, sponsored by the American Nurses Association, is also the start of National Nurses Week, which ends on May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale.

Do you know the story of Florence Nightingale? She was a real person who lived from 1820 to 1910, mostly in England. She’s known as the founder of the profession of nursing, responsible for pioneering nursing practices and reforming health care with an emphasis on hygiene and sanitation.

Florence Nightingale

She was a strong-willed social activist and a dedicated nurse. In 1854, England was battling Russia in the Crimean War near the Black Sea. Thousands of British soldiers were wounded, with more than 18,000 suffering in poorly staffed military hospitals. War officials asked Florence for help, and she organized a corps of nurses and quickly traveled to the hospital at Constantinople.

According to the Florence Nightingale Biography on The biography.com, she found horrid conditions — the hospital was erected on a cesspool, water was contaminated, the facility was overrun with rodents and bugs, and infectious diseases like typhoid and cholera were rampant.

She set about cleaning the facility, enlisting even patients to help with scrubbing. She led her staff in caring non-stop for the patients and earned the nickname “the Lady with the Lamp” as she made rounds at night. She is credited with reducing the hospital’s death rate by two-thirds.

She later wrote about her experiences, and her work sparked a reform in nursing and hospital practices and earned her prizes and honors from the British government and soldiers. She became a revered symbol of the profession and she remains an inspiration for her leadership in preventing disease while delivering compassionate care for the suffering.

Please join us saying “Thank you” to all who follow her in serving in this critically important profession, at SHS and across the Kansas City region.

Do you have a story about a favorite nurse? Please share it with us here. Or plan to come to Swope Health Services and meet our amazing nurses! Call 816-923-5800 to schedule an appointment.