Cam anything be sadder than this story? After nurses have tried heroically to update the profession, to be treated with respect and to maybe look like they belong to the 21st century, a hospital in England is bringing back “Nightingale style caps.” I feel like I’m going to throw up.

The reasoning? Patients like them. Um, I think patients would be happier if you forgot the caps and instead, paid your nurses better, treated them better, so you might be able to attract more people to the profession and thus have decent staffing. Which translates into better care.

Now isn’t that cap cute? Wouldn’t you love to be taken care of by a nurse who looks like she just stepped out of the 19th century with a doily on her head? Doesn’t that just reek of professionalism?

From the Telegraph:

The nurses’ cap has made a come back at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex, to help patients and visitors distinguish between nurses and therapists.

Nurses on Stock Ward are wearing the distinctive white hats for a three-month trial to gauge patients’ reactions before it is decided whether to roll them out across the hospital.

The caps were originally introduced to keep the nurse’s hair neatly in place and it was used by Florence Nightingale in the 1820s.

Not only is the cap a ludicrous idea, but it would certainly help if the journalist who penned this took 3 seconds to look up Florence Nightingale on the Internet.  There is no name on the article, and understandably so. Sorry to shove this into your face, but Nightingale didn’t wear this cap in the 1820s. She was first born in 1820, so maybe she wore some kind of baby cap as an infant and toddler. Her nursing school wasn’t established until 1861.

Now, rather than ask any of the nurses what they think of the caps, or tell the readers if indeed, the nurses are actually going along with this charade, this brilliant journalist just stuffs the story with silly quotes and more inaccuracies over the history of caps. But this quote is priceless.

Mrs Wilson continued: “The nurses with the armed forces still wear hats and look exceedingly smart and professional.

“I have decided that there was a possibility that nurses wearing hats would remind patients of the value and professionalism that nurses bring to their care.”The Mrs. Wilson is this quote is Gwyneth Wilson, director of nursing at Mid Essex Hospitals Trust.

Now, perhaps Mrs. Wilson has not realized that hats are part of all military uniforms, that they match the military uniforms, and are not simply something that a military nurse sticks on her head. The reason that military nurses wear hats is because it is standard part of a military uniform. Notice, military nurses are not being asked to wear 19th century bonnets.

And that last quote–that’s one of the reasons for the sorry state of nursing. Mrs. Wilson thinks that wearing caps is going to remind patients of how valuable and professional nurses are. Maybe she should also dress them in floor length skirts and aprons, so that they can look just like Florence.

If Mrs. Wilson wants professionalism, perhaps she might fight to get nurses paid as professionals and for them to be treated respectfully. And as director of the trust, to improve working conditions, so that they can provide care for their patients. And the journalist who wrote this ridiculous article should have asked her these very questions.

What a combination.

Journalism at its worst, and a nursing director who is infatuated with 19th century head gear.

We are in the midst of National Nurses Week, and I don’t even want to get into that farce. You know, where employers put up plaques of the “best” nurses (no raise, of course), and give up vouchers for free stale cookies, although you can only get those if you work day shift. You know the drill if you’re a nurse. Maybe they might even give you free parking for a day, or a plastic keychain from China that destined for landfill.

Anyway, National Nurses Week coincides with the birthday of none other than Florence Nightingale. Now, this was the woman who thought nursing should be a calling and not a profession–and I guess really believed that the ranks of the world’s nurses would be filled with wealthy women such as herself who had never so much as brushed their own hair, let alone figure out how to write a check.  She was horrified at the thought of nurses organizing, and bitterly opposed it in the UK. To stoop so low as ….trade unions. My goodness, imagine trying to get paid enough to buy food and pay rent.

But this is her family home, at Embly Park (today its a school). It’s easy to understand now why she was so out of touch with the real world, and with the women who eventually became the trained nurses she dreamed about.