Origins of Public Health Nursing in Israel

Abstract

Israel is now thirty years old, but its community health services date back to the early years of this century when the land was still under Turkish rule. The first written reports on the nursing services appeared in 1912 in New York City in the minutes of a group of Jewish women later known as Hadassah Women’s Organization. Some of the members had visited the Holy Land and, shocked by the state of health of the Jewish poor, saw the urgent need for improving care. It was decided to start with a system of community maternity nursing which would be carried out along the lines of the New York State Legislation. The nurses would be given funds to employ midwives, to supply linen to mothers and babies, and to distribute money for medicine and food to the poor. Furthermore, the nurses were to train probationers for community nursing, give talks to mothers and girls and nursing care to the sick poor. They were to be in contact with Hadassah by letters, monthly reports, and were to use an approved system of bookkeeping.