The relationship between nursing and society
The profession of nursing has had a unique and enduring relationship with society over time. In 830 CE, the first account of nursing in the Muslim world was noted at the Qayrawan Hospital in Tunisia (Syed, 1993). For most people, Florence Nightingale is known as the first person truly recognized worldwide as a nurse. She based her belief in nursing as the act of placing the human body in the best condition possible to heal and be nurtured. She saw caring and respect for human beings as a universal need regardless of their status in society (Nightingale, 1859). Yet nursing often has a difficult relationship with society due to its social status and lack of professional identity. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there is a severe worldwide shortage of nurses and midwives in countries where the status of nurses is low and the burden of disease is growing daily (WHO, 2006). The lack of nurses within many societies makes understanding of their value and contributions much more difficult as they are not truly able to practise professional nursing. The International Council of Nurses (ICN), a federation of national nurses associations representing nurses in more than 128 counties, recognizes that nursing must create a professional identity within each culture in order to truly meet their social responsibility.
ICN’s (2007) vision is to lead societies towards better health and that all nurses should “harness the knowledge and enthusiasm of the entire nursing profession to promote healthy lifestyles, healthy workplaces, and healthy communities”. By doing so nursing will foster the health of their societies. Most importantly ICN supports the position that professional nursing practice can support strategies of sustainable development that mitigate poverty, pollution, and other underlying causes of illness