Good Morning Year 2!
Click here for a printable version of this blogpost: Tuesday History printable
Did you know that it is Florence Nightingale’s 200th birthday this year! What a special birthday!
She’s sent us a video message to tell you a bit about her life and how we still follow her advice today:
Write in the comments below what you thought about her message. Did you learn anything new? What do you think you’ll remember from what she said?
Today we are going to look in more detail at Scutari Hospital and the changes that Florence Nightingale made in order to keep the soldier healthy and to make them better.
You can watch this video to see what it was like when Florence arrived at Scutari Hospital. I hope you’ll agree that it is VERY different from our lovely hospitals that we have today.
Some of the biggest problems that Florence noticed were:
- Dirty floors
- Rats and fleas
- Soldiers sharing beds
- Using dirty sheets and blankets
- Sharing old, used bandages
- No proper toilets
- Lots of poo on the floor
- Not enough food
But Florence turned it around! She had lots of ideas that she put in place and had the other nurses working hard to make it a better hospital where soldiers could actually get better. Some of her ideas seem so obvious to us today, but they didn’t use to do them!
Today you are going to compare BEFORE and AFTER Florence was at the hospital. You may like to fold your page in half and make a table with before in one column and after in the other. You can write down all the problems I wrote in the before column, and then how Florence fixed it in the after column. You may like to do it as pictures rather than words to show the difference. Or, you can write the before and after in the comments below.
You may enjoy this Horrible Histories song about Florence.
FACTS
-Florence had her 200th birthday yesterday.
-She came back to England after the Crime War and was even more determined to change things in the hospital.
-Florence was born in 1820 in May.
-Every night she went to the hospital with her lamp and went to check on the poor soldiers.
BEFORE
-Dirty floors
-Sick soldiers
-Lots of poo on the floors
AFTER (TODAY)
-Cleaners
-Clean toiles
-Sinks to wash your hands and sing two happy birthday songs
-Healthy food
Brilliant Layla! It seems strange to imagine hospitals being so dirty, but I’m so glad we know how important it is to keep things clean.
Wow Madeleine, what a wonderful poster you made showing the differences at Scutari hospital. Your picture of all the soldiers sleeping on the floor shows just how bad it really was.
What we learnt from the video-
1) This year is Florence’s 200th birthday year. Her birthday is May 12th 1820.
2)2020 is the international year of the nurse and midwife.
3) Florence used a hammer to bang down the store room doors to get the bandages and other things to make the soldiers better.
4) I will remember to clean my hands and sing happy birthday twice.
BEFORE
Dirty floors
Rats and fleas
Soldiers sharing beds
Using dirty sheets and blankets
Sharing old, used bandages
No proper toilets
Lots of poo on the floor
Not enough food
AFTER
Cleaner hospitals?, she used scrub brushes to scrub the floors.?
She killed the rats.?
They didn’t share beds.?
The blankets were washed in a laundry.?
Yummy, healthy food.???
Toilets were cleaned.?
Clean water was used for everything.?
She put a library? and classroom? in the hospitals for the soldiers to read and have a nicer time and not to feel the pain so much. ??
She must have been very determined to break down the store room door with a hammer. It’s such a good idea to have a library in the hospitals, she was looking after their injuries and making sure they were happy. Well done Sophia!
Before:
The hospitals were dirty, smelly, rat infested, with bad hygiene and surroundings that made it impossible to survive, especially as the soldiers often had to sleep on floors covered in poo (and also because all of the soldiers came in wounded, sick and vulnerable to infection!).
After:
The hospitals were (and still are now) clean, hygienic, fresh-smelling, and, most importantly, people were able to get better! There were large linen bandages, basic medicines, caring nurses and most importantly clean sheets and healthy food for the soldiers.
Fantastic Rex. It is so strange to think of hospitals being so dirty, I am very glad that this is not still the case!
Miss I am done but my mum is going to send a picture to you.
Well done Marisa – I have saved your picture in the blog above. I like your pictures to show the differences between the beds!
Dear miss Carruthers,
I have finished my history homework!
It’s beautifully neat Sophie! Well done for finding so many changes that Florence made.
Before Florence
Dirty floors
Not enough beds
Rats and bugs
Germs
Not enough medicines and bandages
No blankets
Not enough food
Dirty toilets and sinks
After Florence
More beds and blankets
Cleaned the floors
Plenty of medicine and bandages
No more rats and bugs
More nurses
More food
Cleaned up toilets and sinks
Fantastic answers Romey! Well done for finding all the changes she made.
Hi Miss Carruthers, I am doing my work at the hub with Miss Jones.
The hospital before:
There were dirty floors and lots of poo on the floor, this would have been very smelly. There were rats and fleas crawling around making the people sick.
The hospital after:
Florence had some good ideas. She cleaned the place and made a library and classes for the hospital. She had new medical equipment to help make the people healthier.
She made the hospital a happy and healthy place. I think Florence was a good lady. In the night time she was called the lady with a lamp.
Well done Jack! I hope you’re having a good day there.
Fantastic work! Well done for finding some ways she made the hospitals better.
Well done Jack. I can see you are working hard at the hub. I hope you’re enjoying the good weather there too.
We learned that 2020 is her 200 Birthday year. She was born on the 12th of May 1820. Today is her birthday! 2020 is International Nursing and Midwives Year to honour Florence Nightingale. She did important work at the Scutari Hospital during the Crimean war and they called her “ The lady with Lamp” because she carried a lamp when she was checking the sick people in the night. She rather to be called the Lady with the hammer because when she arrived to the hospital she took up the hammer and beat the store room door down locked up by the man in charge of the hospital.
The hospital was dirty and she started to clean it.
She opened a proper Nursing training school in England .
She wrote many books about cleaning hospital. She improved the hospital conditions. She also remind us to was our hand.
Before : there were rats in the hospital.
There was lots of blood and poo and diarrhoea on the floor.
The sheets were filthy.
There was not hygiene when they were amputating legs and lots of germs.
There were not many women working in the hospitals.
There was mouldy food. Patient were dirty. There were not many doctors and lots of germs!
After : the hospitals were clean. All patients had clean sheets and fresh food. There were more trained doctors.
Brilliant before and after Marie! Well done for noting the changes Florence made to the hospital.
Before Florence Nightingale was at the hospitals, they were very dirty, and lots of people died easily. there was lots of rats who spread a lot of diseases. this made the hospital smelly and stinky because there were dead bodies on the floor.
After Florence Nightingale was at the hospitals. she took out the rats and made the hospitals beds cleaner and more people could rest better and not catch disease. it was a lot cleaner and safe.
Florence Nightingale made the hospitals a better place and she was called the lady with a lamp.
Excellent research Gabi! She really did make the hospitals a better place.
Well done all of you. I have enjoyed reading your before and after Florence Nightingale answers. She did so much to change conditions in hospitals and make hospitals the safe places they are today. It’s so nice that the new Nightingale hospitals that have been built have been named after her. What a lovely way to commemorate her 200th birthday which I think is actually today!
Do you know that today is International Nurses Day?