African Nurses and Everyday Work in Twentieth-Century Zimbabwe

Informed by the memories of African nurses, this book highlights the experiences of men and women who provided nursing services in Zimbabwe’s hospitals in the twentieth–century. It argues that in their subordinate positions, and within their various capacities – nursing assistants, nursing orderlies, medics and qualified nurses - African women and men played a pivotal role in the provision of healthcare services to their fellow Africans. They transformed hospital spaces into their own, reshaped and reformulated indigenous as well as western nursing and biomedical practices. Through their work, African nurses contributed to the development of the nation by being at the bedside, healing the sick and nursing the infirm.