Lest We Forget Series August 13 - Florence Nightingale

My earliest memory of a hospital is when my brother was hospitalized with typhoid. He was in the hospital for more than one week before he was discharged. The hospital had a view of the Arabian sea and locally it was known as the Beach hospital. Our neighbours, Menon uncle and Shanta aunty worked in the hospital. Aunty was the head nurse and uncle was the administrative officer. It was a different experience to see aunty in her medical uniform as I have seen her always in civilian clothes. I could also see her as a person who was thoroughly devoted to her profession. She was in charge of a team of junior nurses. Beach hospital opened in the year 1957, reminds us of the colonial past of the city of Kozhikode aka Calicut, a place fresh in the public memory because of the recent crash of AXB-1344 flight and the historical landing of Vasco da Gama in the year 1498) I remember the early morning sight of the white uniform-clad nurses moving through the corridors of the hospital as the early morning sun rays filtered in through the tinted glass windows. The scene was both ethereal and out of this world. Nurses from Kerala have travelled to the remote corners of the country and the world. Nurses trained in Kerala work in the U.K, the U.S, Australia and in the Middle East. Like Vasco da Gama, the women of Kerala were able to travel and see the world. The social stigma attached to the profession in terms of the dress, handling of male patients never stopped this exodus of trained nurses. They all brought back memories of the new lands they have seen and experienced. Back home there were strikes and demonstrations organized by the UNA ( United Nurses Association) demanding better pay and work routine for the nurses. Memories of these protests were digitally shared and celebrated. The Nipah outbreak and the death of nurse Lini Puthussery inspired a film director to make the movie Virus which catalogued how a society won the medical war. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the creation of a literary genre known as Pandemic literature. Slavoj Žižek in his book Pandemic – COVID19 shakes the World, talks about the act of touching another human being which has become a memory today. He quotes John 20:17 where Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to touch him. We are living in a world where you cannot touch people physically. Žižek says you can only touch a person from within – in the spirit of love. This is what the nursing profession reminds us. I would like to share an anecdote from the book by Laura E Richards. A group of military and naval officers met for dinner after the Crimean war. Someone posed a question – Who, of all the workers in the Crimea, will be longest remembered? Everyone was asked to write the name in a piece of paper. After some time, when they examined the small bits of paper every one of them had written – Florence Nightingale – Lest we forget her - The Lady with the Lamp was born today.