We Dressed Wounds And Touched Hearts”: African Pioneering Nurses And Dressers At The Church Of Scotland Missions In Kenya, 1898-1963

Abstract

The establishment of Christian missionary stations and the spread of Christianity, Western education and medical services were possible due to concerted efforts of the White missionaries and African teachers, evangelists and ‘dispensers’. However, role played by the pioneering hospital dressers and nurses in this endeavor has received little attention from scholars. The African nurses and dressers in the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) now Presbyterian Church of East Africa, contributed a lot to the establishment and growth of not only the medical wing of CSM but to the expansion of education and Christianity in the their areas of jurisdiction during the colonial period. In order to complete the missionary story, the inclusion of the mission hospital nurses and dressers story to the existing literature is long overdue.. The pioneering nurses and nurses took advantage of their position to spread the Gospel, opened and taught in the school, were local opinion leaders beyond hospital confines and added voices to the socio-political and economic developments in their communities. Their diverse roles were beyond the hospital boundaries.