Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Deborah Burrows, NLA Publishing, $34.99.
“No matter how much the practice of nursing may change over the twenty-first century, training and experience will continue to be allied to the core nursing values of kindness, compassion and courage.”
Researcher and medical historian Deborah Burrows tells the nation’s extensive story of nursing – for the first time. Using the photographs and resources of the National Library of Australia, she skilfully celebrates our unique history of nursing from the First Fleet, through federation, wars and to the 21st century.
Nurses of Australia traces the subsequent development of nursing, using historical records, newspaper reports, illustrations and often words of the nurses themselves through the war years, the social change of the 1960s to the present day.
Nurses can trace their lineage back to Florence Nightingale. The introduction states: “nursing, in a wider sense, is as old as humanity. Nursing came to Australia with The First Nations of Aboriginal people when they arrived in Australia over 60,000 years ago. They developed or brought with them systems of healing, tending to the sick and bush medicine which continue to this day”.
The book opens by “describing the work of untrained convict caregivers in 1788” and finishes with a look at the modern nursing profession. From the beginning, Australian nurses had to fight for recognition, fair pay and conditions. Australian nurses showed inspiring courage and resourcefulness in appalling wartime conditions”.
She concludes that despite ongoing challenges and technological change, the fundamentals of nursing have remained the same.
Produced in collaboration with the Australian College of Nursing and the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives, we are taken on a visually rich journey with colourful photographs and memorabilia. Well-known names of the profession take centre stage, but also highlighted are some fascinating stories of nurses who played a role in Australian nursing history and have been largely forgotten.
Burrows states this is not an academic tome, but will allow nurses and non-nurses alike an insight into the background of the Australian nursing profession. “My admiration for nurses grew in the course of my research. I was amused, saddened and awestruck by the stories I uncovered.”
