--The staffing pool which Florence Nursing Services provide to the nursing homes of Eastern North Carolina are verified, qualified caregivers.  We hold our pool of nurses and nursing staff to the Florence Nightingale traditional standard of caring, Ensuring the patient’s needs and safety are top priority.

Here’s a little background on why the Florence Nightingale tradition of caring has become our model in caring practices…

Who was Florence Nightingale?

"Florence Nightingale was a trailblazing figure in nursing who greatly affected 19th- and 20th-century policies around proper care.
She was known for her night rounds to aid the wounded, establishing her image as the "Lady with the Lamp.""

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy, the city which inspired her name.  From a young age, Nightingale was active in philanthropy, ministering to the ill and poor people in the village neighboring her family’s estate. Nightingale eventually came to the conclusion that nursing was her calling; she believed the vocation to be her divine purpose.  Determined to pursue her true calling despite her parents' objections, Nightingale eventually enrolled as a nursing student in 1850 and '51 at the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses in Kaiserswerth, Germany. During the Crimean War, she and a team of nurses improved the unsanitary conditions at a British base hospital, greatly reducing the death count.
Her writings sparked worldwide health care reform, and in 1860 she established St. Thomas' Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses.
A revered hero of her time, she died on August 13, 1910, in London.

“The Lady with the Lamp”

In late 1854, Nightingale received a letter from Secretary of War Sidney Herbert, asking her to organize a corps of nurses to tend to the sick and fallen soldiers in the Crimea. Given full control of the operation, she quickly assembled a team of almost three dozen nurses from a variety of religious orders and sailed with them to the Crimea just a few days later.  Although they had been warned of the horrid conditions there, nothing could have prepared Nightingale and her nurses for what they saw when they arrived at Scutari, the British base hospital in Constantinople. The most basic supplies, such as bandages and soap, grew increasingly scarce as the number of ill and wounded steadily increased. Even water needed to be rationed. More soldiers were dying from infectious diseases like typhoid and cholera than from injuries incurred in battle. Nightingale procured hundreds of scrub brushes and asked the least infirm patients to scrub the inside of the hospital from floor to ceiling. Nightingale herself spent every waking minute caring for the soldiers. In the evenings she moved through the dark hallways carrying a lamp while making her rounds, ministering to patient after patient. The soldiers, who were both moved and comforted by her endless supply of compassion, took to calling her "the Lady with the Lamp." Others simply called her "the Angel of the Crimea." Her work reduced the hospital’s death rate by two-thirds.

"Nightingale Jewel"

Nightingale remained at Scutari for a year and a half. She left in the summer of 1856, once the Crimean conflict was resolved, and returned to her childhood home at Lea Hurst. To her surprise she was met with a hero's welcome, which the humble nurse did her best to avoid. The previous year, Queen Victoria had rewarded Nightingale's work by presenting her with an engraved brooch that came to be known as the "Nightingale Jewel" and by granting her a prize of $250,000 from the British government.  Nightingale decided to use the money to further her cause. In 1860, she funded the establishment of St. Thomas' Hospital, and within it, the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. Nightingale became a figure of public admiration.

Later Life

While at Scutari, Nightingale had contracted the bacterial infection brucellosis, also known as Crimean fever, and would never fully recover. By the time she was 38 years old, she was homebound and routinely bedridden, and would be so for the remainder of her long life. Fiercely determined and dedicated as ever to improving health care and alleviating patients’ suffering, Nightingale continued her work from her bed.  Throughout the U.S. Civil War, she was frequently consulted about how to best manage field hospitals. Nightingale also served as an authority on public sanitation issues in India for both the military and civilians, although she had never been to India herself.  In 1907, she was conferred the Order of Merit by King Edward, and received the Freedom of the City of London the following year, becoming the first woman to receive the honor. In May of 1910, she received a celebratory message from King George on her 90th birthday.

Death and Legacy

In August 1910, Florence Nightingale fell ill, but seemed to recover and was reportedly in good spirits. A week later, on the evening of Friday, August 12, 1910, she developed an array of troubling symptoms. She died unexpectedly at around 2 p.m. the following day, Saturday, August 13, at her home in London.  The Florence Nightingale Museum, which sits at the site of the original Nightingale Training School for Nurses, houses more than 2,000 artifacts commemorating the life and career of the "Angel of the Crimea." To this day, Florence Nightingale is broadly acknowledged and revered as the pioneer of modern nursing.

Credited to Biography.com