Kofoworola Abeni Pratt

Last updated • 5 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Chief
Kofoworola Abeni Pratt
Kofoworola Abeni Pratt.jpg
Born1915 [1]
Died18 June 1992 (aged 7677)
Lagos, Nigeria
Nationality Nigerian
Occupation Nurse
Known forFirst Nigerian born Chief Nursing Officer in Nigeria

Chief Kofoworola Abeni Pratt Hon. FRCN ( née Scott, 1915 – 18 June 1992) was a Nigerian nurse who was one of the first notable black nurses to work in Britain's National Health Service. [2] She subsequently became vice-president of the International Council of Nurses and the first black Chief Nursing Officer of Nigeria, working in the Federal Ministry of Health. [3] [4]

Contents

Early life

Pratt was born in Lagos, Nigeria as the second of four children of Augustus Alfred Scott and Elizabeth Omowumi Scott (née Johnson). [5] [6] Her paternal great-grandfather was Chief Taiwo Olowo, a wealthy Yoruba nobleman. [7] Her family was Anglican and she attended St John's Secondary School and CMS Girls School, Lagos. [8] She passed the Cambridge senior school certificate in 1933 and then studied to be a teacher at the United Missionary College in Ibadan, after her father discouraged her from her wish to be a nurse. From 1936 to 1940, she taught at the CMS Girls School. [9]

On 3 January 1941, she married Eugene Samuel Oluremi (Olu) Pratt, a pharmacist for the civil service. Her husband was posted in Enugu, Warri and Forcados, so the couple moved around. Their first son died in infancy and their second son, Babatunde, was born in Lagos in 1943. Her husband moved to London the following year to receive British medical qualifications. Their third child, Olufemi, was born in London in 1952. [5]

Career

In August 1946, Pratt moved to England to study nursing at the Nightingale School at St Thomas' Hospital, in London. [4] Her son was left with foster parents while she attended the St Thomas’s Preliminary Training School. [5] During her time at the hospital, Pratt experienced racial discrimination, when a patient refused to be treated by a black nurse. [10] She was active in the West African Students' Union, [9] an association of students from various West African countries who were studying in the United Kingdom, and which, in 1942, had called for the independence of Britain's West African colonies. [11] Pratt passed her preliminary state exams in 1948 and her finals in 1949, qualifying as a State Registered Nurse on 25 November 1949. [5] [1] It was unusual for a married woman to be allowed to take up nursing at that time.

Pratt is often incorrectly cited as being the first qualified black nurse to work for the NHS. [4] It seems this first appeared in her biography by Justus A. Akinsanya [7] [12] and was then repeated. Recent research shows that black nurses worked in the United Kingdom prior to the founding of the NHS in 1948, such as Annie Brewster and Omo-Oba Adenrele Ademola. By 1948 trained black nurses predating Pratt's qualification in 1949, were working for the NHS; [13] however their stories are under-researched [14] and have only recently come to light such as Lulu Coote. [15] Pratt broke through many barriers in her lifetime; she may well have been the first black student at the Nightingale School for Nurses and later became the first Nigerian-born Chief Nursing Officer in Nigeria. [5]

After qualification, she trained in midwifery at the Anglican Sisters of St John Clinic, receiving a certificate in 1950. The following year, she received a tropical nursing certificate from the Hospital for Tropical Medicine, St Pancras. In 1952, she completed the Royal College of Nursing ward sister course with a grant from the Nightingale Fund and then worked as a staff nurse for Evelina Children’s Hospital of Guy’s Hospital. In 1953, she returned to St Thomas' Hospital as a part-time charge nurse. [5]

Return to Nigeria

Pratt returned to Nigeria in 1954, after four years working for the NHS. Although she was initially denied a post as ward sister – a position only open at the time for British expatriates [10] – she got a position at the University College Hospital in Ibadan with the support of her colleagues at St Thomas' Hospital. When she arrived, she discovered that her accommodation was in a separate block than her British expatriate colleagues and that the professor of medicine would not let her work on the ward when he learned that she was Nigerian. However the Matron of the hospital overturned that decision and Pratt was moved to the medical ward at Adeoyo Hospital. [16]

The new hospital was still under construction and Pratt imposed new standards for hygiene, care and nutrition and reformed the administration of the ward. [16] She was promoted to administrative sister in 1955 and the following year, she returned to London to study for a diploma in hospital nursing administration from the Royal College of Nursing. In 1959, she travelled to the United States, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica on a Carnegie Grant to gain broader nursing experience. [5]

In March 1961, she became the deputy matron of the University College Hospital, Ibadan and in January 1964 she became matron. [5] Pratt was the first Nigerian to hold that position. [9] She created a school of nursing at the University of Ibadan in 1965. Pratt was also a founder and leader of the Professional Association of Trained Nurses in Nigeria and founder and co-editor of the journal Nigerian Nurse. [17] [18]

Pratt was the chief nursing officer to the Federal Ministry of Health in Nigeria and then appointed Commissioner of Health for Lagos in the 1970s. [19] [20] In 1971, Pratt became the President of the National Council of Women's Societies in Nigeria. [21]

In 1973 she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The citation described her as a: [22]

State Registered Nurse and Midwife. Certificate in Tropical Nursing. Teachers Diploma. Hospital Nursing Administration Certificate. Chief Nursing Officer, Federal Ministry of Health, Lagos.

The award was presented to her by the President of the Nigerian Red Cross Society, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola, on 21 December 1973. [23] In 1975, she was awarded a chieftaincy title – that of the Iya Ile Agbo of Isheri – for services to Nigeria. [10] [24] In 1979 she was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Nursing. [25]

In 1973, she was invited by the military governor of Lagos, Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson, [7] to join his Cabinet as, in effect, Minister of Health (the title was “Commissioner of Health”). In the office, she succeeded in achieving reforms for doctors, nurses and in public health. Her term of office ended in 1975 with another military coup. [26]

She died on 18 June 1992. [27]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal London Hospital</span> Teaching hospital in Whitechapel, London

The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and specialist tertiary care services for patients from across London and elsewhere. The current hospital building has 1248 beds and 34 wards. It opened in February 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery</span> Academic faculty

The Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care is an academic faculty within King's College London. The faculty is the world's first nursing school to be continuously connected to a fully serving hospital and medical school. Established on 9 July 1860 by Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, it was a model for many similar training schools through the UK, Commonwealth and other countries for the latter half of the 19th century. It is primarily concerned with the education of people to become nurses and midwives. It also carries out nursing research, continuing professional development and postgraduate programmes. The Faculty forms part of the Waterloo campus on the South Bank of the River Thames and is now one of the largest faculties in the university.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matron</span> Senior nurse in a hospital

Matron is the job title of a very senior or the chief nurse in several countries, including the United Kingdom, and other Commonwealth countries and former colonies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethel Gordon Fenwick</span> British nurse

Ethel Gordon Fenwick was a British nurse who played a major role in the History of Nursing in the United Kingdom. She campaigned to procure a nationally recognised certificate for nursing, to safeguard the title "Nurse", and lobbied Parliament to pass a law to control nursing and limit it to "registered" nurses only.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">City Hospital, Birmingham</span> Hospital in England

City Hospital is a major hospital located in Birmingham, England, operated by the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust. It provides an extensive range of general and specialist hospital services. It is located in the Winson Green area of the west of the city.

Justus Akinbayo Akinsanya, FRCN was a nurse, human biologist, nurse educator and researcher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maud McCarthy</span> British/Australian nurse

Dame Emma Maud McCarthy, was a nursing sister and British Army matron-in-chief.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alicia Lloyd Still</span> British nurse

Dame Alicia Frances Jane Lloyd Still, was a British nurse, teacher, hospital matron and leader of her profession. She was one of the leaders in the campaign for state registration of nurses. Following the Nurses Registration Act 1919, she was a member of the General Nursing Council (1920-1937). As chairwoman of the General Nursing Council's first Education and Examinations Committee she helped establish the first national examination standards for the registration of nurses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eva Luckes</span> Matron of The London Hospital (1854–1919)

Eva Charlotte Ellis Luckes was matron of the London Hospital from 1880 to 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comfort Momoh</span> British midwife who specializes in the study of female genital mutilation

Comfort Iyabo Amah Momoh, is a British midwife who specializes in the treatment of female genital mutilation (FGM). Born in Nigeria, Momoh is a member of the British FGM national clinical group, established in 2007 to train health professionals in how to deal with the practice. Until 2017 she served as a public-health specialist at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London. She is the editor of Female Genital Mutilation (2005).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University College Hospital, Ibadan</span> Hospital in Oyo State, Nigeria

University College Hospital, Ibadan (UCH) is a federal teaching hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria attached to the University of Ibadan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Elizabeth Wardroper</span> British nurse (1813–1892)

Sarah Elizabeth Wardroper was an English nurse who was matron of St Thomas' Hospital, London, and the first superintendent of the Nightingale School of Nursing at that hospital.

The history of nursing in the United Kingdom relates to the development of the profession since the 1850s. The history of nursing itself dates back to ancient history, when the sick were cared for in temples and places of worship. In the early Christian era, nursing in the United Kingdom was undertaken by certain women in the Christian Church, their services being extended to patients in their homes. These women had no real training by today's standards, but experience taught them valuable skills, especially in the use of herbs and folk drugs, and some gained fame as the physicians of their era. Remnants of the religious nature of nurses remains in Britain today, especially with the retention of the job title "Sister" for a senior female nurse.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, is the sole governing body that regulates all cadres of nurses and midwives in Nigeria. It was established by government decree in 1979, and re-established as a parastatal by the government of Nigeria by Act Cap. No 143 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Highgate Hospital</span> Hospital in Highgate, London.

Highgate Hospital was a name used to refer to the infirmary building which opened in 1869 on the St Pancras side of Dartmouth Park Hill in Highgate, London.

Chief Daniel Conrad Taiwo, alias Taiwo Olowo, was a trader, arms dealer, slave owner, political power broker, philanthropist and community leader in Colonial Lagos.

Dame Katherine Christie Watt, was a British military nurse, nursing administrator and civil servant.

St Anne's School, Ibadan is a secondary school for girls in Ibadan, Nigeria. The school took its current name in 1950, after a merger between Kudeti Girls School, founded in 1899, and CMS Girls School, Lagos, founded in 1869. It can therefore claim to be the oldest girls secondary school in Nigeria.

References

  1. 1 2 Nightingale Training School: Record Book No.24. London Metropolitan Archives. H01/251/NTS/c/04/03/.
  2. "Wonderful adventures: How did Mary Seacole come to be viewed as a pioneer of modern nursing?". Times Literary Supplement. 6 December 2013. pp. 14–15. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  3. Bell, L. M. (October 1967). "Kofoworola Abeni Pratt; third vice-president, International Council of Nurses". Int Nurs Rev. 14 (5): 7–10. PMID   4864502.
  4. 1 2 3 "Listener Week". Woman's Hour. 11 July 2016. BBC Radio Four . Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Oshikanlu, Ruth (2021). "Pratt [née Scott], Kofoworola Abeni (1914/15–1992), nurse leader in Nigeria". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.90000369151. ISBN   978-0-19-861412-8 . Retrieved 28 November 2021.
  6. Women's Research and Documentation Centre Newsletter, collected vols 1 and 2, University of Ibadan Institute of African Studies, 1987, p. 9
  7. 1 2 3 Akinsanya, Justus A. (1987). An African 'Florence Nightingale' a biography of: Chief (Dr) Mrs Kofoworola Abeni Pratt (PDF). Ibadan, Nigeria: Vantage. ISBN   9782458260 via Nightingale Society.
  8. "Chief Kofoworola Abeni Pratt, OFR". Nigerian Women Annual: Who's Who. 1990. ISSN   0795-7807. OCLC   27953435.
  9. 1 2 3 Matera, Marc (May 2008). Black Internationalism and African and Caribbean Intellectuals in London 1919–1950 (Thesis). Rutgers University – Graduate School – New Brunswick. doi:10.7282/T38S4Q7V . Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  10. 1 2 3 McDonald, Lynn (2021). "Kofoworola Abeni Pratt: From the First Black Nurse in the NHS to Minister of Health for Lagos State". The Nightingale Society. Archived from the original on 29 July 2019. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
  11. Hakim Adi, West Africans in Britain 1900–1960: Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Communism, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1998. ISBN   978-0853158486.
  12. "An African 'Florence Nightingale' (Notes on Justus Akinsanya's biography of Kofoworola Abeni Pratt)". The Nightingale Society. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  13. "A Hidden History: African Women and the British Health Service, 1930–2000". Young Historians Project. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  14. "African Women who launched the National Health Service". Young Historians Project. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  15. "Lulu Coote". Young Historians Project. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  16. 1 2 Ferry, Georgina (23 October 2021). "Kofoworola Abeni Pratt: professionalising nursing in Nigeria". The Lancet. 398 (10310): 1478. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02240-6. ISSN   0140-6736. PMID   34688362. S2CID   239060154.
  17. McDonald, Lynn (16 May 2019). "The First BME Nurse in the NHS". Florence Nightingale Comes Home for 2020. University of Nottingham. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  18. Three Decades of Florence Nightingale Trophy Speech Contest. LAYTAL Communications. 2000. pp. 8–10. ISBN   9789782170484.
  19. "Kofoworola Abeni Pratt". Litcaf . 31 January 2016. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  20. "Kofoworola Abeni Pratt". Nursing Times . Vol. 70. 1974. p. 1632. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
  21. "Presidents". ncwsnigeria1958.com. Archived from the original on 26 June 2019. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  22. "Twenty-fourth award of the Florence Nightingale Medal" (PDF). International Review of the Red Cross (146): 242. May 1973. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  23. "Twenty-fourth award of the Florence Nightingale Medal" (PDF). International Review of the Red Cross (147): 250. May 1974. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  24. "Kofoworola Abenni Pratt". Royal College of Nursing Digital Archives. 2019. Archived from the original on 15 June 2020. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
  25. "RCN Fellowship and Honorary Fellowship Roll of Honour". Royal College of Nursing United Kingdom. Retrieved 11 July 2016.[ permanent dead link ]
  26. Akinsanya, op.cit., p.179
  27. "In the estate of Kofoworola Abeni Pratt deceased". The Times. 24 April 1993. p. 16.

Further reading