Florence Wald is remembered as the founder of the hospice movement that is experienced in the modern field of public health. Her interests in palliative care resulted from her detest in the way patients with terminal illnesses were treated when she worked as a nurse (Turner et al., n.d.). According to Abel (2018), her enthusiasm was catalyst after she listened to a speech on the topic given by a British physician, Cicely Saunders, the founder of palliative care methods and St. Christopher's Hospice, which was the world's first hospice center.
The hospice movement began in 1963. During that time, Wald held the dean position at Yale School of Nursing. Wald began executing the hospice movement by reportedly renewing the curriculum of the nursing school to make it address issues of end-of-life. The renewed program also persuaded students to spotlight the need to be concerned with the patient's care (Pajka, 2017). Later in the year of 1966, Wald resigned from the dean position with intentions of developing a hospice center in the United States that resembled the one Saunders was creating in England. With the help of a team of doctors, nurses, and clergy that she organized and her husband, Wald developed the first hospice in the U.S., which was named "Connecticut Hospice center" (Abel, 2018).
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Regardless of disagreements within the board concerning Wald's vision in the hospice program, which later led to resigning of Wald shortly after the opening of the center, the outcomes of hospice movement are still conspicuous (Turner et al., n.d.). By the time of her demise, about 3,000 hospice centers were already created in the United States, and they served almost 900,000 patients yearly. This rise is traced from the commencement of Medicaid to pay for the care offered at hospice centers (Abel, 2018). Even today, hospice programs are everywhere. Based on these outcomes, all foundations of public health nursing have been persuaded to train nurses to advocate for their patients' freedom from pain, dignity, and right to make independent decisions end-of-life (Abel, 2018).
References
Abel, E. K. (2018). Prelude to Hospice: Florence Wald, Dying People, and Their Families. Rutgers University Press.
Pajka, S. E. (2017). Doctors, Death, and Denial: The Origins of Hospice Care in 20th Century America.
Turner, S., Nelson, M., Wolfe, J., Lancaster, D., Meany, S., & Lynch, A. (n.d.). The History of Hospice Nursing.
