Very often, the nurse is the health care practitioner that the patient first meets in hospital. Not only will that professional re-assure the ill and frightened, but, often, by her very competent presence, that nurse will also offer comfort, hope and practical advice to the equally frightened next-of-kin. Nurses become surrogate mothers to those children, who are hospitalised with various illnesses and diseases. They offer the little ones the care and loving encouragement to accept nourishment and to take their medication in an atmosphere that as far as is practical approximates the home environment. No one who has witnessed the humane care and affection nurses give to those unfortunate tiny tots, who have been abandoned by their biological parents, could ever take for granted the dedication of nurses in the Children’s Wards. We can recall a period of economic hardship in the 1980s, when many a nursing professional would pack a few extra spoons and other items from their own homes just so that they could feed infants in a ward bereft of many very basic items.

With the deadly disease of HIV/AIDS now a very unfortunate reality of modern life, new forms of nursing and patient care are being developed to meet new demands. And even as the medical sector in this part of the world prepares for and positions its human resources to deal with the new contingencies of this plague, the world is rocked back on it heels as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) rises, claiming lives, baffling medical scientists, and grounding once-busy airlines. Soon, health authorities will be formulating new guidelines for health care workers dealing with SARS patients.

Fortunately, nursing professionals will be aided by the latest technology in performing their duties as well as in protecting themselves. A century and a half ago, nursing was a much more hazardous occupation. Mary Seacole, the Jamaican-born nurse, who worked with the wounded soldiers in the Crimean War in the very era with the legendary ‘Lady With the Lamp’ Florence Nightingale, had spent several years working with cholera victims in her homeland, in Panama and on the island of Cuba. The daughter of a black Jamaican herbalist or ‘doctress’ and a Scottish soldier, Mary Seacole later acquired the arts of a herbalist and developed a passion for caring for the sick. Her fame as a healer spread far and wide. After a dreaded cholera epidemic had swept Jamaica leaving thousands dead in its wake, Mary Seacole travelled to Panama to offer her services to the health authorities battling there with an onslaught of cholera. Although she was coldly received because of her gender as well as her colour, Mary Seacole utilised the experience she had gained in Jamaica to nurse the victims. She convinced the Panamanian administration that cholera was contagious. When the epidemic abated, the authorities commended Mary Seacole for her heroic efforts, which helped to save many lives.