Coinciding with the publication of a photographic tribute to the nurses of Ireland, best-selling author (and nurse's daughter) Maeve Binchy salutes her heroes
People remember nurses simply because they are heroic. We forget others we meet along the way but never nurses. If I had my life all over again, I would be a nurse, a big, calm, confident nurse, there for people at the start of life, the end of life and the sticky bits in between. I wouldn't faint if I saw blood, I'd know what to do in a crisis and I would spread confidence rather than unease.
And how do I know all this so definitely? Because my mother was a nurse, way back in the 1930s. I listened to her stories in amazement and some disbelief until I realised that she was indeed entirely fearless.
I was with her on a train when a man got his hand caught in the door. Everyone else was in a blind panic, but she opened the door, released his mangled hand, held it up in the air and pulled the communication cord, speaking reassuringly to him all the while. When I got a huge fish-bone stuck in my throat, she rescued me with the only things to hand: a shoe polishing brush to keep my mouth open and a garden secateurs to remove the offending bone.
She discouraged her three daughters from considering nursing because, back in her day, the training was fairly medieval and, once qualified, the respect was scant. We grew up on stories like the one about the poor patient who had the daring to cough in the direction of a very important and self-regarding consultant. "Cough towards nurse," he was instructed firmly.
But that was then and this is now. Nurses are unlikely to be treated so dismissively by doctors. Today, there is a huge emphasis on team work, on combining for the good of the patient. There are much fewer reports of hierarchical pyramids where specialists are at the top and nurses are at the bottom of the heap. In modern medicine, only a very foolish doctor would underplay the role of good nursing in helping a patient.
Of course, the system is not perfect yet. Nurses are not paid nearly enough nor given the position in society that they deserve, but it's getting there. And this book's fine images - of the men and women who are there to nurse us, console us, explain our frailness and advise how to combat it - will help to establish in people's minds the debt we owe them, and those who went before them and come after them.
The photographs don't just show the gentle sympathy of nurses who mop your brow and soothe your fears. That reassurance is always there - it's part of what we expect from them and is what gave them the affectionate nickname of "angels". But today's nurses are much more than kindly souls. They are professionals, educated and trained to cope with more and more every year.
In Ann Henrick's photographs, you can see their serious and concerned faces as they think through a problem; you can track their inventiveness working out a way to reassure a first-time mother giving birth and to distract or calm an upset child, an anxious elderly person or the grieving family of someone who has just died.
As I looked through these pictures and thought about what nurses confront every day of their working year, my heart grew full thinking of how much we need them and how there is a danger we may take them for granted. We must never do that.
They are there day and night; they don't know what the ambulance siren may be about to bring in to A&E; they know only too well that normal office hours don't apply when there is an emergency or when they are short-staffed. They are in the front line when there are not enough beds or insufficient scanners or funds to look after all the children of the nation equally.
They spend days and nights picking up the pieces when doctors, having delivered bad news, move on, as they must, to the next patient. Nurses stay and explain. I could write forever about the kindness of nurses and their wisdom, about the ways they help you to manage whatever is wrong with you.
From my own experience and that of family and friends I could list a thousand examples of their generosity that still make me want to gulp with gratitude. From the night nurse who always pretended she was making a pot of tea for herself at 3 a.m. and would share it with a sleepless patient, to the male nurse who would wash out my awful elastic stocking for me, to the very young nurse who rescued yet another old man who said he was a bit confused: "We're all confused here, Johnny," she said, and he went back like a lamb to his bed - for a while anyway.
Yes, I have at least a thousand stories about their value and worth, but I think these pictures are the way to tell you about the people who are waiting for us at these dramatic points of our life. May the day soon come when our society pays them the money and the recognition they so richly deserve. In the meantime, we will never ever forget them.
Healing Hands: People Remember Nurses with photographs by Ann Henrick and words by Maeve Binchy is published by New Island (€15).
A labour of love
Healing Hands: People Remember Nurses is a labour of love born of a life's passion - photographing people. "Ever since I was a child I've been a photographer and I love people," says Ann Henrick, an advanced practice nurse originally from the US.
Over the past 20 years (in between running a heart failure clinic, studying for a PhD and lecturing) she has focused on documenting the work of her colleagues. "There are so many wonderful things nurses do which have never been documented," says Henrick.
Although her photographs have been exhibited in the US and internationally and used to illustrate articles, it is only since she moved to Ireland in 1999 to lecture in NUI Galway that she resurrected a long-held desire to publish a book of her work.
Her students in Galway, many of them "mature" nurses with years of experience, were impressed by her talent for capturing the essence of their work and urged her on. From July 2002 to October 2003 she worked full time on the book, travelling the country, taking photos of nurses going about their daily business. "Most of the nurses had never seen a photo of themselves at work. Many asked 'Do I really do that?'" says Henrick, adding that one nurse was moved to tears.
Her photographs are accompanied by a running commentary by writer (and nurse's daughter) Maeve Binchy. The two became friends through Henrick's love of photography.
"I loved her column in The Irish Times and I said 'I can tell by her writing she's got a beautiful spirit but I can tell by her picture that she hates being photographed'."
In 1991 she wrote to Binchy offering to photograph her; in 1997 they met; in 2004 they have published a book together combining their passion for people, words and photographs. - Iva Pocock