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For various reasons, 2020 is a year that the history will never forget. COVID-19 has changed the modern world and nurses have been on the frontline battling this virus but, this is not the first time nurses have stepped up to bat to save humanity. This May marks the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale and the start of a nursing-led health care revolution. See below for the article written by Susan Korah—first published by the Canadian magazine Convivium—discussing the achievements of Nightingale and the nurses working in her honour. Full article: https://www.convivium.ca/articles/celebrating-nurses-from-crimea-to-covid-19/  Celebrating Nurses from crimea to covid-19By Susan Korah Today, our world needs healing and to be rekindled with Love. Once, Florence Nightingale lit her beacon of lamplight to comfort the wounded. Her light has blazed a path of service across a century to us -- through her example and through the countless nurses and healers who have followed in her footsteps.
When Annette Kennedy, the Irish President of the International Council of Nurses said last year that she was expecting the year 2020 to be a “momentous year for nurses,” little did she anticipate that the outbreak of COVID-19 that would transform nurses from the unsung, anonymous heroes of the healthcare profession to the newest stars in an age of instant celebrities.
Coincidentally, this year also happens to be the bicentennial of the birth of Florence Nightingale, the founding mother of modern nursing, born 200 years ago on May 12. The WHO has also declared it the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife. The visionary Englishwoman’s innovative contributions to healthcare practice—considered revolutionary in her time—are as relevant to today’s COVID-19-stricken world as when her Canadian student, Charlotte McLeod, helped establish the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON). The VON played a key role in fighting the typhoid epidemic during the Klondike Gold Rush between 1896 and 1899. Nightingale’s contributions to modern nursing and healthcare range from the philosophical to the strictly practical, say Canadian scholars who have studied her life and legacy.
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The Llandovery Castle is a new Canadian opera by composer by Stephanie Martin and librettist Paul Ciufo, created as an act of remembrance to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the hospital ship Llandovery Castle on June 27, 1918. The student production will be airing LIVE on APRIL 6, 2020 at 9pm. See link below. The opera focuses on the lives and service of 14 Canadian Nursing Sisters who died in the tragedy. The calm confidence, skill and selflessness of Canadian nurses during the Great War stand in stark contrast to the chaos and violence that surrounded them. From the horrors inflicted by inhuman trench warfare, the Sisters offered healing and compassion to soldiers on both sides of the conflict. The work premiered in two workshops performances in Toronto in June, 2018, to enthusiastic audiences and critical praise. Opera Laurier, based at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Faculty of Music on the Waterloo campus produced the first FULL PRODUCTION of the opera, on Feb. 28 and 29 at 7:30 p.m. and March 1 at 3 p.m. in the Theatre Auditorium in the John Aird Centre on Laurier’s Waterloo campus. The production was directed by Liza Balkan and conducted by Associate Professor Kira Omelchenko and performed by nine singers, chorus and chamber orchestra – all Laurier students. This video production was shot by Chestnut Hall Music at the final dress rehearsal on February 26 at 7:30 pm. Copyright 2020 Stephanie Martin, All Rights Reserved On January 30, 2020, Barbara Dossey, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN, HWNC-BC, represented the New Mexico Nurses Association and New Mexico nurses at the 54th New Mexico Legislature Second Session 2020. Senator Elizabeth “Liz” Stephanics read the Senate Memorial 22 that declared 2020 the "International Year of the Nurse and Midwife" recognizing the impact of nurses and midwives on the health care of all New Mexicans. New Mexico Senators Elizabeth “Liz” Stefanics, Gay G. Keran, Gerald Ortiz Pino, Mary Kay Papen, Shannon D. Pinto, and Mimi Stewart introduced the Senate Memorial. Photo top left: NIGH International Co-Director Dr. Barbara Dossey with New Mexico Senator Elizabeth “Liz” Stefanics receiving the New Mexico Senate Memorial 22. Photo Top Right: Dr. Barbara Dossey holds the New Mexico Senate Memorial 22 that declares 2020 the "International Year of the Nurse and Midwife" recognizing the impact of nurses and midwives on the health care of all New Mexicans. |
