Florence Nightingale
First, Do the Sick No Harm
Caring for someone, first remove what is making them worse
Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing (1859); Notes on Hospitals (3rd ed., 1863)
Someone at home is ill and you want to do something. Where do you start? What did Florence Nightingale do first at Scutari?
What actually happened?
In the autumn of 1854, with Britain at war in the Crimea, Florence Nightingale took thirty-eight nurses to the British army hospital at Scutari in Turkey. Beds lined the corridors, the drains were blocked, the linen went unwashed, and far more soldiers died of dysentery and cholera than of wounds. Years later she wrote that it might seem strange to make it the very first requirement of a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.
Remove what makes them worse
At Scutari her first work was not surgery but laundry, cooking, airing and scrubbing. Dirty linen, bad food and foul air were each making patients worse; take them away first, and medicine has a chance.
An elderly parent comes home from hospital. Before buying tonics, check whether the bedroom is airy and quiet at night.
Quiet and certainty are treatment too
In Notes on Nursing she listed apprehension, waiting and fear of surprise among the things that harm the sick more than exertion does. Nursing is not only handing out medicine; keep a patient's mind from hanging in suspense.
A relative is waiting for test results. Tell them when they arrive and who will collect them; it helps more than 'don't worry'.
It comes to everyone
She wrote that almost every woman will at some time have charge of someone's health; in other words, every woman is a nurse. Care is not a skill for hospitals only. Families should know about air, quiet and observation.
Your child has a fever. Note the times, temperatures and what they ate; it is the list the doctor needs.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: someone at home is ill, or you are caring for someone in a bad way, and you want to do something.
Ask first: what around them is making them worse: dirt, noise, cold, waiting? Which can I remove first? Am I helping them, or calming myself?
Where it goes wrong: taking 'do no harm' as 'do nothing'. At Scutari she worked from dawn to night, on exactly the dirty jobs nobody wanted.
Lines to keep
A hospital's very first requirement: that it should do the sick no harm.
Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care.
Same situation, other people are asking
My parents got old and I don't know what I can do.Taking care of him has emptied me out.There are four of us and I'm the only one doing it.Two years of caring for her and I broke first.Caring for a parent · all 8 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.