Photo By Master Sgt. Blair Heusdens | Navy nurses and leadership with Joint Task Force Guantanamo's Joint Medical Group...... read more read more
Subscribe
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — With a heritage of more than 100 years, the Navy Nurse Corps continues to provide medical care at home and overseas to military personnel, their families, civilian populations around the world and, at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, detainees in custody at Joint Task Force Guantanamo. Medical personnel from the Joint Medical Group recently celebrated the 101st birthday of the Navy Nurse Corps.
The Navy Nurse Corps was established by Congress in 1908, however, prior to that, many women worked as nurses aboard Navy ships and at Navy hospitals, offering help during times of war when nursing services were greatly needed. During the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, women performed nursing duties for the Navy, often in dangerous places.
The Navy Nurse Corps began with a group of 20 nurses known as the "Sacred Twenty." Many of these nurses had previous experience serving as contract nurses and Army nurses prior to joining the Navy Nurse Corps. At the end of World War I, 1,550 nurses had served in Navy hospitals and other facilities at home and abroad. Nineteen of those Navy nurses died, several from the influenza outbreaks that killed many on both sides. During World War II, two groups of Navy nurses were held prisoner by the Japanese and later rescued or released.
Today, Navy medical personnel have been deployed to places such as Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Djibouti, Zambia and Ghana to assist in providing medical and humanitarian assistance and have served on the ground and aboard ships in support of continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At Joint Task Force Guantanamo, nurses and other medical professionals have an important, but at times trying, job. In addition to caring for the military personnel, contractors and families on base, medical personnel provide continuing medical, dental and psychiatric care to detainees at the detention facilities here. Nurses also conduct nutritional supervision for the detainees; ensuring daily feedings are administered for some of those who refuse to eat.
According to the JMG senior nurse executive, the JMG nurses are professional and highly-skilled with diverse backgrounds. The nurses take care of each other and share a bond that spans throughout their careers.
"Being a nurse in the services [versus being a civilian nurse] offers a sense of camaraderie," the unit's senior nurse executive said. "When we go from command to command, we know the caliber of nurses we're working with."
The JMG's Kilo Company recently took over for Juliet Company after a couple weeks of left-seat, right-seat training. During that time, the staff familiarized themselves with their new surroundings and the mission and made friendships with those they replaced.
"Though we're saying goodbye to them now," said the senior nurse executive, "We know we'll see them again."
| Date Taken: | 05.22.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 05.26.2009 11:19 |
| Story ID: | 34108 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Web Views: | 264 |
| Downloads: | 216 |
This work, Navy Nurse Corps celebrates 101 years, by MSG Blair Heusdens, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
