Obra Social Femenina de Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados Contribution to the Development of Nursing in the Forties

Abstract

Attending to the particularities of the various professional disciplines helps to enrich the body of knowledge that integrates them. The contributions made from the local level help complete this knowledge and highlight the uniqueness of some events that, triggered by various conditions, explain the historical fact.

The objective pursued with the writing of this article focuses on making known the influence that the initiative carried out by the Obra Social Femenina de Ntra. Sra. de los Desamparados de Valencia (OSF) had on the personal and professional promotion of women Valencian. Specifically, we focus our attention on the task carried out by the OSF in the promotion of women nurses.

Following the historical research model based on obtaining the data in an organized and systematic way, we consult primary sources that provide relevant data and until now unknown to the study and also consult specialized bibliography that helps us locate, analyze and understand the circumstances in the that the events happen. Emphasizing the social role that women would play during the first decades of Franquismo and justifying the need for health professionals to ensure the implementation of the eugenic measures proposed by the new Regime, we will seek an overview of the nursing profession in those years. Finally, and in the context of one of the private institutions, which under the order of May 21, 1941 offered the possibility of giving official validity to nursing studies, we discovered the presence of a local group of nurses which, promoted from the ranks of the confessional association of the early twentieth century, contributed to the training of Valencian nurses.