Trailblazer nurse
Georgina Fane Pope to be honoured during National Nursing Week on P.E.I., May 8-14
When the Association of Registered Nurses of Prince Edward Island (ARNPEI) was looking for a Prince Edward Islander to honour during 2017 National Nursing Week, it didn’t have to look far to find a champion.
After reading Katherine Dewar’s book, “Those Splendid Girls: The Heroic Service of Prince Edward Island Nurses in the Great War”, the story of one Island nurse story jumped off the page.
“We chose Georgina Pope because she was a Canadian nursing pioneer who showed excellent leadership and creativity in 1899, when there was a shortage of food and medical supplies, to take charge of a military hospital (in South Africa)
and successfully cared for 230 survivors during the Boer War,” says ARNPEI president Cynthia Bryanton.
Born on Prince Edward Island in 1862, Pope was the daughter of William Pope, a father of Confederation.
“She could have had a comfortable marriage and became
an Island socialite, but she travelled to New York City where she trained as nurse at Bellevue Hospital and served in the Boer War and the First World War.
Dewar is thrilled that the ARNPEI has chosen to honour Pope during the week that runs May 8-14.
“Georgina was ahead of her time, influencing nursing on so many levels,” says the author who is writing a biography on Pope for Island Studies Press, due out in the fall of 2017.
After the war, Pope was a nursing and administrative leader.
“Her specialty, at that time, was obstetrics and gynecology, and she took the Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, D.C., to a very high standard because of her innovative techniques in teaching.”
With another nurse, Pope helped established a school of nursing as well as the first nursing affiliation program in North America.
“It was the model for all who came after for 100 years,” says Dewar.
The popular One Book One Island program has returned to P.E.I. libraries.
This year the selected book is “Ru” by Kim Thúy, the awardwinning story of a young Vietnamese girl and her journey from Saigon to a Malaysian refugee camp and onward to a new life in Quebec.
The novel features the themes of immigration, adapting to new cultures and the re-telling of personal experiences.
As part of One Book One Island, the Confederation Centre Public Library has partnered with the P.E.I. Association for Newcomers to Canada to celebrate the newcomer experience.
Today at 10:30 a.m. the public is invited to attend a free event at the library.
All are welcome and the event is free.
Attendees will hear personal experiences of two newcomers and their journey to Canada, as well as enjoy videos from the Canadian Museum of Immigration’s digital storytelling gallery that tell stories of the diverse immigration experience.
Guest speakers will include Benedicta Watchi and Keyvan Ashenaei. Watchi, a former refugee from the Central African Republic, arrived with her two daughters on P.E.I. in 2014. Ashenaei arrived as a skilled worker in 2012 with his wife and two sons.