Florence Nightingale, and Nurses in Mundaring

On Monday it was the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth on May 12th, 1820, in Florence Italy.

Famous for being the ‘Lady with the Lamp’ who organised the nursing of sick and wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale’s far-sighted ideas and reforms have influenced the very nature of modern healthcare.

Her greatest achievement was to transform nursing into a respectable profession for women and in 1860, she established the first professional training school for nurses, the Nightingale Training School at St Thomas’ Hospital.

Florence’s influence on today’s nursing ranges from her ward designs (known as Nightingale Wards), which were developed in response to her realisation that hospital buildings themselves could affect the health and recovery of patients, through to pioneering infection control measures and the championing of a healthy diet as a key factor for recovery. Florence also believed in the need for specialist midwifery nurses and established a School of Midwifery nursing at King’s College Hospital which became a model for the country.

She inspired the founding of the International Red Cross which still awards the Florence Nightingale Medal for nurses who have given exceptional care to the sick and wounded in war or peace.

NURSES IN MUNDARING DISTRICT

Looking through our collection we have some interesting photos of local nurses in the early years of the Shire’s history.

Emily Clatworthy (first image below) moved with her husband Joseph to Smiths Mill during the 1890s and was for more than thirty years the only nurse in the district at a time when the nearest doctor was in Guildford. She was also a midwife or “rabbit catcher” as she was called by the locals. She travelled many miles in her sulky in all kinds of weather to attend at the births of literally hundreds of hills children. As well as her nursing she also manage to raise nine children. Emily lived in Glen Forrest for the rest of her life until 1952 when she died at the age of 88. In 1989 the Shire of Mundaring named the Glen Forrest Health Centre “Emily Clatworthy House” in recognition of her work in the shire.

Sister Victoria Norrish became a Silver Chain nursing sister in 1961. She was the first Silver Chain nursing sister in the Mundaring district. She is pictured (second image) standing outside her home on the corner of Helena Street and Great Eastern Highway Mundaring. Her Volkswagen beetle car has the insignia of Silver Chain on the door panel.

Wooroloo Sanitorium was officially opened on 1st May 1915 (see photo below) for patients with both tuberculosis and leprosy. it ran until the end of 1958 when patients were transferred to the new Perth Chest Hospital later named The Charles Gardiner Hospital. It was then a General Hospital with a maternity wing added in 1962. In 1969 the hospital closed and became a Minimum-security Prison Farm. As for the many nurses that worked there …. well, that’s another story!

Pictured below is a group of Nurses at Wooroloo in 1949 and bottom right, a resident doctor and Sister Nina Koch with 2 patients in 1950.