Diana Hartley (1894 – 1986) was an English nurse and nursing administrator in India. She served as the first General Secretary of the Trained Nurses Association of India, and worked to improve the standing of the nursing profession there.
Early life and training
editShe was born on 23 November 1894. After the deaths of her parents during World War I, she spent two years in the United States living with relatives.[1]
She trained as a nurse at the Royal Naval and Marine Maternity Nursing Home in Kent in 1926 and the Royal West Sussex Hospital in 1928. Her first pamphlet, "The Key to Mothercraft", was published in 1934 while she was working in private and district nursing.[2]
Trained Nurses Association of India
editIn 1935, she became the first General and Organising Secretary of the Trained Nurses Association of India.[3][4] Her work involved overseeing the Student Nurses' Association, the Midwives' Association and the Health Visitors’ League. She visited hospitals across the whole Indian subcontinent, often drawing attention to the poor living and working conditions of nurses.[5] During her tenure, membership of the TNAI increased from 800 to 2600.[1] The Indian government, facing a nursing shortage, regularly consulted the TNAI for advice in the 1940s.[6]
Hartley's work was intended to promote nursing education and to raise the status of the nursing profession in India.[7] She wrote of the low esteem the profession was held in and the need to 'raise [its] prestige,'[8] saying that this was more difficult in India than elsewhere.[9]
She edited the Indian Nursing Journal from 1935 to 1944, where she continued to publish articles.
On being invalided in 1944, Hartley was awarded the Silver Kaiser-i-Hind Medal for her service in advancement of the public interest.[1]
Later life
editBack in England, she became General Secretary of the National Association of State Enrolled Nurses, where she drew up the constitution as well as touring to give talks at meetings.
She died on 15 July 1986.[1]
References
edit- ^ a b c d "Collection: Diana Hartley Indian Collection | ArchiveSearch". archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
- ^ "Papers of Diane Hartley". Archives Hub.
- ^ "The Nursing Journal of India: reflecting the lives of nurses in British India, 1910-1939 – The UKAHN Bulletin: ISSN 2049-9744". Retrieved 2024-08-19.
- ^ "Editorial". Nursing Journal of India: 229. 1935.
- ^ Healey, Madelaine (2014-08-07). Indian Sisters: A History of Nursing and the State, 1907–2007. Routledge. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-317-56009-8.
- ^ Nair, Rathish; Sarin, Jyoti (2021). "From the Annals of History: The College of Nursing at New Delhi" (PDF). Nursing Journal of India. CXII (5): 221–224. doi:10.48029/NJI.2021.CXII505.
- ^ Bush, Barbara (2007-03-29), Levine, Philippa (ed.), "Gender and Empire: The Twentieth Century", Gender and Empire, Oxford University Press, pp. 77–111, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199249503.003.0004, ISBN 978-0-19-924950-3, retrieved 2024-08-19
- ^ Nair, Sreelekha (2006). A Profession on the Margins: Status Issues in Indian Nursing. Centre for Women's Development Studies. p. 13.
- ^ Hartley, Diana (1958). "The First General Secretary Looks Back". Nursing Journal of India. 69 (10): 337.