Wonderful Nightingale hospitals but why no Seacole?

A swanky new hospital was built here a few years ago and given a swanky new name. However, locally we call it Larbert as that is where it is. Actually I don’t know what the real name is.
I don’t care what temporary hospitals are called but I am glad we have them.

Yes, of course she was born in Florence but the family home was in Wellow, Romsey. Sorry sloppy thinking.

I don't particularly care what the hospitals are currently called, but I do think dismissing Mary Seacole and her achievements is wrong and that setting the two women up against each other to laud one and denigrate the other is what has always been done to women. Both women made great strides and provided medical help. Mary Seacole was never given the acknowledgement that Nightingale received and there is still a feeling that recognising her work somehow means Nightingale is not given credit. Nightingale worked with the medical establishment and developed nursing and care. Seacole worked independently using her own money and practicing a brand of herbal medicine which was common in Jamaica, she worked at the battle front, so much closer to the action than Nightingale. There is no doubt that her acheivements should be more widely acknowledged and someone should have named at least one of the temporary hospitals after her. It's probably too late now and shows that her name is still not something which immediately comes to most people's minds.

LullyDully I agree, yes.

Silverlining and Pantglas

I agree, and yes, silverlining that is exactly the reason why.

Mary Seacole certainly has her place in history but it was Florence Nightingale who realised the importance of hygiene in infection control, principles still followed today.
Her nurses were issued with scrubbing brushes and handwashing with soap was of prime importance.

That is the message today too.

LullyDully I thought she was born in Florence in Italy? Hence her name.

I thought it was because of the way Florence nightingale designed ward lay out, ie 42 beds 21 either side in a row with good(ish) visibility of patients.
Such as has been done at the Excell.

Just to say we have a lot of Nightingale mentions here in Romsey where she was born. My GP practice bears her name. I think the name and what she did is easily recognised without putting down Mary Seacole. If people are worried all of the field hospitals could be named differently. Maybe just get on with Nightingale, enough to do at present.

Just read about Mary Seacole and agree that her work is as worthy of recognition as Florence Nightingale but maybe now is not the appropriate time to be pushing the issue.

Here in north Wales our health board Betsi Cadwaladr is named after a woman who worked alongside Florence nightingale so we probably don’t need a hospital naming as well.

You'll be pleased to hear ofcourse I agree with you. peaches50

When I was growing up in London there was the Nightingale Hospital, St Thomas's. The nurses were known as the Nightingale Nurses.

Mary Seacole had a much harder time of it than did Florence who was from a privileged background and was best friends with Liz Herbert, the wife of the Secretary of State for war.

Far from being the wrong time to discuss these wonderful women. It is surely the best time.

Yes, yes YES! peaches50
That's exactly what I thought when I heard about the new hospitals.

Wouldn't it be great if they were called The Nightingale-Secole Hospitals?

I've read and written about the history of both women and Nightingale had many advantages and many prominent male contacts and supporters, but STILL had to fight to get supplies for the wounded and respect for her nurses.

Mary had no contacts, came up against racism, as she still does today an yet was as determined to help as Nightingale.

She spent all her own money to buy medical and other supplies for the troops she was nursing and when they heard, after the war, that she was destitute as a result, they took up a collection for her.

It is sad (not to mention disgusting) that she has been attacked even in death by what some sources call 'The Nightingale Faction'.

There is no good reason why both women should not be equally honoured. This is no place for bigotry and racism.

… Chewbacca

Oh I don't know Callistemon, it has a certain ring to it.

Hot Lips Hospital doesn't quite have the same ring though

I understood that 'Nightingale' was a generic name given to all the planned 'field' hospitals?

Remember M*A*S*H and Hot Lips Houlihan?

Choosing an historic name " a blast from the past" would appeal to some whereas an outer space/planet name ie. venus,mars, jupiter, saturn etc. etc. might have been more optimistic?? Just a thought [smile} And not so fraught with significance ? Or am I being over simplistic?

I can't get worked up about it either way well, me neither really, paddyanne but I did get cross about an irrelevant bit of campaigning when we are in the middle of a national, indeed a world, crisis.

The Nightingale Nurse Award was launched by Guys in 2017 for outstanding practice.

Could that have anything to do with it?

I understood that 'Nightingale' was a generic name given to all the planned 'field' hospitals? Straightforward and recognised by most. NOT the time, I think, to be twittering about honouring all and sundry.

My suggestion entirely FarNorth - for those who wish to get steamed up about the relative merits ????

(However trivial - but let’s not bother MPs with petitions)

Why shouldn't grans who are shut away in their houses have a thread about this, MawB?
We are not all bothering our MPs with it.

I am happy with Nightingale. There is a time and a place for being active politically, racially, gender wise, class wise ext ext ...but this is not it. x

Let’s have a whole thread on who we should name temporary hospitals after?

After all, it’s not as if the government have anything else to do at the moment?
By on the other hand, housebound Grans with time on their hands might find it an entertaining alternative to inveighing against the younger generation, against neighbours who insist on going out or people who insist on going to shops despite being over 70.

Isn't there already an Elsie Inglis in Edinburgh ? Maybe its just a nice thing to do for Louisa's descendants ,as she seems to have been forgotten here for a long time

I'd rather it honoured Dr Elsie Inglis who, after being turned away by the medical establishment, set to and raised the funding for a whole mobile hospital and recruited for and ran the whole thing. Her mobile hospital operated in appalling conditions in winter and is honoured in Serbia to this day. She survived to the end of the war but was very ill on her return and died soon after.
This new hospital in Glasgow might as well be called the Glasgow Nightingale instead of a local nurse who only served for a short time. Not a competition of course but hard to understand the exclusion of a Scottish medic who did so much more.