Last updated: Anne Marie Lee, Chairperson, Alliance of Health Care Assistants in Ireland.
Planning a career path for healthcare assistants Published: Last updated:
Sun 25 Jul 2021, 2:36 AM
Irish nursing grew out of the charitable works of middle-class gentlewomen who visited the sick poor in their own homes.
Following on from this came the founding of the Sisters of Mercy and the Irish Sisters of Charity in the first half of the 1800s and the setting up of St Vincent’s and the Mater Hospitals for the sick poor.
Women who worked as nurses were untrained; the requirement for employment as a nurse in hospitals was that they be of good character and able to read and write. Formal nurse training began in the Dublin hospitals in the 1870s.