. The nurses of the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan during the First World War. Peace, rights and dignity of work.
Introduction: During the First World War the Hospitals of the big cities had to care for the people injured in the war places. To face this challenge, important changes in the internal organization had to be implemented.
Objective: To investigate how the First World War changed the working conditions of the nurses on duty at the Ospedale Maggiore and to contribute to outline the professional identity during the years of the conflict.
Methods: The correspondence between the female nursing staff and the hospital administration in the time span between from 1915 to 1918 was examined. The documents were retrieved in the historical archive of the Ospedale Maggiore from November 2017 to march 2018 and were analyzed through the methodology of historic research according to Chabod.
Results: During the First World War the nurses asked the hospital administration for changes of their working conditions, which had become unbearable because of the conflict. They obtained improvements concerning: a reduction in nightshift work hours, the employment of 86 nurses to guarantee a day off every ten days, replacement of staff in case of absence, increase in salary, paid sick leave.
Conclusions: The nurses of the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan during the First World War, hoping for peace, stood out for their diligence in the care of the sick both civilians and militaries. Besides, they managed to obtain the recognition of they rights and dignity in the workplace.