Nursing in Fiji owes its existence and success to the sacrifice of a nurse called May Anderson.
Considered Fiji’s first nursing graduate, she trained the first batch of indigenous Fijian nurses, laying the “foundation of the nursing system” we possess today.
Ms Anderson used to live in Lami, on a little hill overlooking the Suva harbour.
She spent 26 years at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH).
Born in Fiji in 1874, the year of cession, her parents were cotton planters who lived in Sigatoka during the boom of the local cotton trade.
On April 1, 1894, Ms Anderson enrolled as a trainee nurse and three years later she was appointed a staff nurse. In 1899 she became CWMH’s sister-in-charge.
By 1902, she was chosen as the matron of both the CWMH and the Mental Hospital now called St Giles Psychiatric Hospital.
In 1912, Ms Anderson went to England where she obtained a Diploma in Nursing and Certificate from the Royal Sanitary Institute for school and health work. In 1917, she acted as acting anaesthetist.
In 1920, she retired after 26 years at the CWMH.
She was matron during the 1908 Spanish flu epidemic which killed 9000 Fijians and 50 million people worldwide.
In 1901, there was high infant mortality in the colony.
There were 3362 births and 4258 deaths of babies and children.
To address the problem, authorities believed there was a need for an aggressive nurse training for Fijian women, with Ms Anderson as the head.
“I had to start from nowhere as we had only European nurses in training, with two Fijian ward maids,” Ms Anderson was quoted in The Fiji Times of February 25, 1959 as saying.
Six local girls were handpicked by Methodist Mission sisters to undergo a six-month training course which was taught in the Fijian vernacular.
“The girls had to be taught in Fijian as they did not know English but that was no difficulty for me because I had spoken in Fijian since childhood,” Ms Anderson said.
“They took a great interest in their work and the medical and nursing staff took a great interest in them.”
The CWMH’s Anderson Maternity Unit is named in memory of Ms Anderson’s contribution to nursing in Fiji.
The first nurse to work in Fiji was an English woman called Frances Webster Wedderburn, who taught Ms Anderson.
