If you’ve seen the news about our recent inclusion of the ROK n ROLL shoe in our inventory, you’ll know how much respect and admiration we at the Uniform Shop have for nurses. That’s why we’re so excited that today marks the start of National Nursing Week in Canada (May 8-14), so we can continue to support and give back to this incredible group of workers with deals, giveaways, and the wide variety of scrubs medical uniforms we have available.

“The best nurses have the essential qualifications before they go to school.” - Florence Nightingale.

History of Nursing Week

But what is National Nursing Week? The whole week was built out of celebration for Florence Nightingale – a woman famous for being the founder of modern nursing and a pioneer in her own right. In 1971, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) designated May 12 (Florence Nightingale’s birthday) as International Nurses Day. 

Fast-forward 14 years, and the Canadian Nurses Association began negotiations with the Canadian federal government to make the week of May containing the 12th an annual National Nurses Week. They wanted the week to draw public attention to nurses and all the hardships they go through, aiming to increase the awareness of the public, policy-makers, and government officials about the contributions nurses have made to Canadian health and wellbeing.

National Nurses Week was adopted shortly after, but it wasn’t until 1993 that the name of the week was changed to National Nursing Week. The change was made to emphasize the discipline as a whole and all the accomplishments within the nursing profession; that makes this year the thirtieth anniversary of that decision! 

“The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.” - Florence Nightingale

2023: Our Nurses. Our Future.

Each year, ICN picks a theme for National Nursing Week. This year, the theme is Our Nurses. Our Future. 

This theme notes the start of a global campaign of the need to learn from the COVID pandemic and translate these lessons into future actionable items. It asks for our communities and our leaders to think about what we want for future nursing practices to address the global health challenges that COVID exposed and to improve global health for everyone.

“For us who nurse, our Nursing is a thing, which, unless in it we are making progress every year, every month, every week, take my word for it we are going back. The more experience we gain, the more progress we can make.” - Florence Nightingale

Uniform Shop & Nurses

While supporting our Interior Health Community during the pandemic, we saw firsthand how the pandemic shone a spotlight on the courage and commitment nurses bring the work every day. Across our country, it also showed us how much the pandemic stressed nurses out to the point of burnout – something that hasn’t really recovered since.

With how important of a role nurses play in our community, we stand firmly behind every individual in this profession. All year round, we supply nursing uniforms (our Kybun Shoes and Koi Uniforms are very popular) and accessories like compression socks, scrub caps, and stethoscopes. But during National Nursing Week, we’re also thrilled to offer 15% off EVERYTHING regularly priced in the store and we’ll be doing giveaways (just like we do every year during National Nursing Week) in honor of our Interior Health nursing community.

“Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.” - Florence Nightingale.

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