1/2007 Calendarium of community/family nursing until 1939

DOROTA KILAŃSKA (Zakład Pielęgniarstwa Społecznego i Zarządzania w Pielęgniarstwie Uniwersytetu Medycznego w Łodzi,p.o. Kierownik: mgr Mariola Mirecka)

Summary
Family nursing has a rich history written in various books and articles. According to these, it owes its most important development to the pioneers of social nursing in England, Canada and the United States of America. Following the example of other countries, an attempt to apply the rules of patient care in their own place of living has taken place in Poland, too. Here, the most important part of the development of family nursing took place in the second half of the 80s of the 20th century. Earlier though, representatives of various other jobs expressed a positive opinion about the nurse’s position in the therapeutic team within health centres. This is best reflected in the words of M. Kacprzak: “All health centre managers are talking about the important role of the community nurse, univocally agreeing that the nurse is the soul of the team, and that without them, there is no centre. The nurse has to find the patient, see him/her to the health centre and look after him/her in every aspect. The nurse can do the most for the communication between the society and the centre. The tasks include conducting interviews, without which there is no prophylactic action. The number of interviews is one of the most important indicators of a centre, because it tells about the penetration of the home life, which in itself is – from the point of view of success – condition sine qua non”.

Key words: family nursing, history