Holidays and commemorative dates:
Mother’s Day – all over the world this holiday is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. The history of the holiday begins in 1908, when Anna Jervis from the USA, whose mother passed away prematurely, proposed to dedicate the day to honoring those who gave us life. In 1910, the state of Virginia made Mother’s Day an official holiday. Later, the day began to be celebrated in other states. Later, the holiday became international. Mother’s Day has been celebrated in Ukraine since 1999.
International Nurse’s Day – celebrated since 1974. The date of May 12 was chosen because Florence Nightingale, one of the founders of the Sisters of Charity, was born on this day.
On May 12, 1820, Florence Nightingale was born into a rich aristocratic family in Florence – the world’s first nurse and sister of charity, public figure of Great Britain. You can say – the creator of the independent nursing profession.
During the Crimean War, Florence, together with 38 helpers, including nuns and sisters of charity, went to field hospitals in Turkey and organized the care of wounded soldiers. As a result of their activities, in less than six months, the mortality rate in the infirmaries decreased from 42% to 2%.
In 1856, Florence, at her own expense, erected a large white marble cross on a high mountain in the Crimea above Balaklava in memory of the soldiers, doctors and nurses who died during the Crimean War. Soldiers who returned from the front told legends about her, calling her “the lady with the lamp”. At night, with a lamp in her hands, she herself went around the wards with the sick.
Returning to England, Nightingale became the founder of the first courses of the Sisters of Charity; ensured that hospitals were equipped with ventilation and sewage systems, and that hospital staff necessarily underwent the necessary training; that strict statistical processing of all information is carried out in hospitals. On her initiative, a military medical school was organized, and educational work was carried out in the army about the importance of disease prevention.
The principles of nursing ethics and deontology are most clearly reflected in the oath taken by graduates of nursing schools in many countries. This is Florence Nightingale’s oath:
“Before God and in the presence of those present, I solemnly promise to lead a life full of purity and to carry out my professional duties honestly. I will abstain from all poisonous and noxious and will never knowingly use or prescribe drugs that can cause harm. I will everything in my power to maintain and improve the level of my profession about the well-being of everyone I care about.”
Events on this day:
996 — the Tithe Church was consecrated in Kyiv – the first stone church in Kyivan Rus.
1865 Sofya Okunevska-Morachevska was born, public figure, the first Ukrainian doctor in Galicia.
1907 — birthday of Katharine Hepburn, American film actress, winner of four “Oscars”.
1926 — Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile made the first airship flight over the North Pole.
1936 Ivan Marchuk, Ukrainian painter, Honored Artist of Ukraine, laureate of the Shevchenko Prize, was born.
1937 — the BBC company conducted the first telecast in world history. Then the audience was shown the coronation ceremony of the English King George VI.
1954 — Ukraine (then Ukrainian SSR) became a permanent member of UNESCO.
1965 — the Soviet automatic interplanetary station “Luna-5”, launched by a space rocket on May 9, 1965, reached the surface of the Moon.
1994 — Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic have stopped hostilities on the basis of the Bishkek Protocol.
