Nursing is a profession within the healthcare sector focused on the care of individual, family and community, so they may attain, maintain or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurse is a person, educated and trained to care for the sick or disable, who should have kind heart with communication skill and responsibilities

Modern nursing:- It is the oldest of the arts and youngest of the profession, which has its origin in the loving mother care of the helpless infants. Then it gradually enlarged from that of a mother to care of the sick human. As the days advanced, nursing became evident, that love and care alone were not sufficient to promote health and overcome disease. So skill, expertise and knowledge became essential for nursing. Hence a working head, a loving heart and skilled hands are truly committed to become the foundation of modern nursing.

“Caring may occur without curing, but curing cannot occur without caring” (Watson 2003). There are few noble professions in this world. Being a nurse is perhaps the noblest in the home of medicine, because nurse cares for people in their darkest hours, often taking unfair blame and criticism from their patients and it is purely people oriented concept.

Nursing is a beautiful profession if everybody respects it. Being a nurse means being the one really at the bedside, as doctors move in and out, evaluating patient and writing orders like magic, those orders get translated into task list, which are carried out with love and compassion may help a good nurse to establish rapport with a kind word or a joke to put patient at ease, which may lead the disability improvement.

Love and compassion originates from one’s heart, and when it is transformed in patient care creates hope and cures the disease.

A good nurse with compassion and love is always a building block of a hospital. When the patient enters an outpatient or inpatient department, first he/she will meet a person dressed with clean crisp white uniform, with a wide and friendly smile from the nurse, does wonders to alloy the anxiety and put them at ease.

A loved heart with warm hands of nursing care is needed in those critical areas like

-Emergency unit

-Intensive care unit

-Post-operative unit

-Labour room and neonatal sectors

In these areas specially trained nurses who forget their fatigue and personal life provides round the clock care  which includes monitoring patients health prognosis, checking vitals , maintaing  hydration, observing bleeding on the operated area, cleaning the mouth and washing the patient on bed, putting drops in patients eyes, to make it easier to blink, monitoring the fetal heart sounds and helping the mother to bear the delivery pain  and observing the neonate for temperature, skin for jaundice or burn due to high temperature when it is in incubator.

Apart from caring, a loved and loving nurse will help the patient capable of meeting self care needs,  teaching a new mother how to care for the neonate or teaching a new diabetic about insulin management and life style changes.

Patient’s experience:-As the patient recovers from his ill health, by attaining the good nursing care, patient feels that nurse is a good friend, where he shares all his joys and sorrows which help him to become a member of the hospital family.

The question being raised today whether the modern nursing practice is missing with loving and human care?????....Yes of course, the challenges which are faced by the nurses includes

- Stress-Due to the improper patient –nurse ratio, creates the work load on the nurse to accomplish the given task

- Technological explosions:-Use of computer technology in documentation of data which makes the nurse to become a machine than a human in her functions.

- Fake nurses:-Without obtaining proper basic nursing education, some nurses just work for money making which hinders them from human values

- Lack of salary/incentives:-Salary and promotion according to the type of work and experience are not counted , which effects one’s job satisfaction

- Non nursing roles:-In most of the health care sectors nurses undertakes roles which are not of their forte, and spending more time in non-nursing related work like billing, record keeping, inventory, laundry, diet etc.

- Lack of in-service programs regarding the ethics and values of nursing for newly trained nurses.

- With the above in mind, we want to begin re-emphasizing and recommending a comprehensive analysis of the concept of love in nursing. The best nursing care may be sought by exploring  the role of love in the nurse-client relationship.

 - Mrs Nathalia DCunha, Assistant Lecturer, Father Muller School of Nursing