Florence Nightingale’s environmental theory is a holistic approach to health care.

Based on her
theory, there is an inter-relationship between healthful environment with nursing. She noticed that the
external influences and conditions can suppress or contribute to disease or death.

When she was asked by Sir Sidney Herbert from the British Department of War to recruit nurses
to provide care of the sick and wounded soldiers in the Crimean War, Florence gave her recruits duties
to clean the barracks of the soldiers to reduce infection, cook for the soldiers, do laundry and provide
for recreation and help soldiers write letters for their family. Her Training School for Nurses at St.
Thomas Hospital in London provided both theory-based knowledge combined with clinical practice,
thus, nursing evolved as a science and art.

As time passed by with the evolution of nursing, her theory and knowledge based teaching is
still regarded as a basis of how student nurse are taught and how practicing nurses apply these theories
in real life. Nurses are not just people who gives their patients their medicines but, nurses today act as
advocates for their patient, we act as housekeeper by cleaning after them, emptying their urinals or
catheter bags and even cleaning spills in their rooms. We act as counselor and teachers to our patients
by giving them our time just to listen to them vent or just share their lives with us.

Nurses help provide a clean and sterile environment for patients to help reduce and avoid any
infection. Today as we face a pandemic with the COVID19, nurses are tried and proven to be an
important soldier to this situation war we are facing. Nurses are here to help educate not just the
patient, but the patients family and even the nurses own family the importance of a clean environment
by teaching them good hygiene.

Nurses at this time are doing their best to uplift the spirits of those patients who live in a nursing
home that has stopped allowing family members from visiting in order to prevent transmission of any
disease to our geriatric patients. Nurses become resourceful and has introduced the use of media and
social network so our old and fragile patients can still have glimpse and talk to their loved ones.

Whether 10,20, or 100 years from now, we will always look back on what Florence Nightingale
has taught us, her theory, simple as it sounds saves lives.