Friday the 6th October 2023 marked the 112 year anniversary of the death of Sr Henrietta Stockdale in 1911. Henrietta was a British nursing pioneer and Anglican nun. She moved to South Africa in 1874 having had some training as a nurse at the Clewer Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital for children. She first went to Kimberley in 1876 where she worked as a District Nurse in the mining camps and then at Kimberley Hospital. It was later in Kimberley that she established Southern Africa’s first training school for nurses at the Carnarvon Hospital. Through Henrietta’s influence and pressure the first state registration of nurses and midwives in the world was brought about when the Cape of Good Hope Medical and Pharmacy Act of 1891 passed into law.
Each year in Kimberley around the anniversary of her death there is a commemorative service in the St Cyprians Cathedral in Kimberley in honour of Sr Henrietta Stockdale and her contribution to nursing in South Africa. Since 2015 the commemoration was extended to include a Memorial Lecture and at the same time give recognition to the final year nursing students from the Henrietta Stockdale Nursing College. This recognition entitles the finalist students to receive a pin on broach depicting the coat of arms of Henrietta Stockdale Nursing College. Academic staff members who have served the Nursing College longer than five years receive the same acknowledgement with the pinning of the broach. This year’s celebrations coincided with a visit from a team from the UK, Uganda and South Africa working on project to support the palliative care education needs of nurses, funded through the Worldwide Universities Network, and supported by Mesothelioma UK and the Glynnis Gale Foundation. It was also an opportunity to speak with the nurses at the celebration about palliative care. Therefore the 8th Henrietta Stockdale Memorial Lecture was given by Dr Steph Ejegi-Memeh on “Supporting the palliative and end-of-life care education needs of nurses”.
Dr Steph is a Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield in the Department of Sociological Studies and the Mesothelioma UK Research Centre. She is a nurse and completed her PhD in 2019 at the University of Sheffield. Her research interest’s centre around health inequalities related to under represented groups, gender and ethnicity. She is leading the WUN project on supporting the palliative care education needs of nurses which brings together academics from the University of Sheffield, the University of Leeds, Lancaster University, Makerere University, the Henrietta Stockdale Nursing College, the University of Ghana, the University of Alberta and the University of Auckland.
In her lecture, Dr Steph talked about the global need for palliative care and the fact that only 14% of those in need can access such care. She recognised the important work of Henrietta Stockdale in the professionalisation of nursing, and the key role that nurses have in the provision of palliative care. She discussed some of the barriers and challenges to the provision of palliative care, including a lack of understanding of what palliative care is and the difference that palliative care can make to the lives of adults and children in need.
It was a privilege to share in the celebration at the cathedral, where 78 finalist nursing students and two academic staff members were given their pin on broach and their hands blessed for the work ahead of them. The celebration was led by Dr Herman Willemse, Vice Principal of the Nursing College who said that: “To live a life of dedication to serve others, such as Sr Henrietta Stockdale is not easy, however to live a motto every day such as that of Henrietta Stockdale Nursing College is a lifelong dedication (Allis Quam Mihi – Service above self)”.
About to recite the SA nurses pledge
Following the celebration Dr Herman took the visitors to the Sr Henrietta Stockdale chapel on the site of the Nursing School. It was here that he led the visiting nurses – Dr Steph Ejegi-Memeh, Dr Yakubu Salifu, Liz Darlison and Prof Julia Downing – in reciting the South African nurse’s “Pledge of Service”, which was a powerful and poignant moment.
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