Our First Nurse Safiye Hüseyin Elbi's Life and War Memories

Safiye Hüseyin Elbi, who comes from a high socio-cultural family, had one daughter and three brothers. Like her siblings, she was educated in Europe. Şükrü Ulman and İskender Ulman became doctors, and the third, Harun Ulman, a naval engineer. His sister Nesime Mukadder Dölen also worked as a volunteer nurse at Asarı Atika Museum Hospital during the Balkan War.
She married Commander Hüseyin Bey, a Turkish naval officer who served as director of the Maritime Lines and on several occasions as naval attaché abroad. They had two children, Fatma Nihade and Tarık.
In an interview with a journalist in 1954, Elbi expressed her passion for her profession:
“My grandfather Miralay Şükrü Bey was the cavalry of the ship that took Florence Nightingale to Crimea during the Crimean War. I spent my childhood always listening to Florence Nightingale's life and stories. We even had her picture in our house. I'd look at her photo and dream of becoming a woman like her. In the Balkan War there were no nurses in the country. England sent a medical team to our country and they settled in the current Archaeological Museum. Ebüzziya Tevfik Bey was a very good friend of my father. He told my father they were looking for nurses who spoke English. When we heard this, my sister and I applied. My father and my husband encouraged us. Then I forgot my house, my children, and focused on the patients… ”.
Elbi received her first education in a volunteer nursing course for 6 months which was opened in 1911 by Hilal-i Ahmer Society. Safiye Hüseyin and her sister Nesime were among the first applicants when the Hilal-i Ahmer Society called for women from Istanbul to look after the wounded soldiers during the Balkan War. Elbi, with her sister Nesime, first worked in the establishment of hospitals. Afterward, the two sisters were sent to the Asar-ı Atika Museum (Istanbul Archaeological Museum) because of their English skills. Thus, Elbi took her first step into nursing. She stated that she worked in this hospital, where the war wounded were treated, under difficult conditions without resting for months. She also began reading anatomy books to improve practical nursing knowledge following the closure of temporary hospitals.
She also served in the First World War. After a while, she was appointed to Bezmi Âlem Sultanisi. After working here for a while, she voluntarily started working on the Resit Pasha Hospital Ship. She served as the only Turkish nurse and a head nurse among the German and Austrian nurses on the Resit Pasha Hospital Ship. She successfully completed this mission under difficult conditions under bombardment.
 
Safiye Hüseyin Elbi in another interview:
“Our profession requires love. Nowadays, there is no love. That's why our mission hasn't over yet. Our young girls are not interested in this profession. In our time, pasha girls always worked in hospitals. It was like this all over the world. The first nursing organization in Sweden began with the bridesmaids of the queen. Countess Albach pioneered this situation in Germany. When we started to work in the hospital, doctors and patients were surprised and upset that we were working here because of difficult conditions. But we didn't think so. It is worth the whole world to see the patients recovered with our care. To help patients, to relieve their pain was our only purpose. Being cared for by a woman also affected the patient's morale. I left my two children at my house, but I had hundreds of children from the hospital. They all needed me.”
Following the First World War, she was sent to Europe to examine the situation of Turkish prisoners of war and students stranded in European countries. She was sailed with the Korkovado Ferry, which took German and Austrian prisoners to their hometown. She was completed her mission there successfully and had sent the students in Berlin to the country by ship.
The news that the women officials of Hilal-i Ahmer will go abroad appeared in Memleket newspaper dated 15 February 1919 as follows: Safiye Hanım worked as a nurse in the Balkan War and went to the trenches of Çanakkale and served as a holy mission.
Elbi's impressions in the report she wrote after this assignment are remarkable. Safiye Hüseyin Elbi recorded her experiences: “Like a courageous soldier resolved to reach the front, I viewed my task of assisting our children yearning for their homeland as a sacred duty, and was desperate to set off at the earliest moment, by any means possible. The SS Peace fell to our lot. The ship was carrying over nine hundred German and Austrian prisoners of war being repatriated."
When she returned to Istanbul, Elbi was taken to the administrative committee of Himaye-i Etfal Cemiyeti (Society for the Protection and Care of Children ). She started to work with “Save the Children Fund”  and the inspector of this institution was selected.
At the Red Crescent Congress held on 11 December 1924 in Istanbul, a delegation including Safiye Hüseyin Elbi decided to establish a nursing school. Elbi has served on the board of directors and the teaching staff of the school.
She served as the first female member of the Hilâl-i Ahzar Society (the Green Crescent Society), which was established in 1925.
She was one of the founders of the Tuberculosis Control Association and Women's Association of Turkey.
As a modern Republican woman, Elbi has made efforts to involve women in social life in addition to her work on behalf of nursing. She went to the Women's Center of the Hilal-i Ahmer Society a few days a week and took care of the art house.
When she went to the United States on 27-31 July 1927 with the invitation of the congress of the World Federation Against Alcoholism, she also participated in the congress of the Youth Red Cross and was hosted in the best way by the leaders of the Red Cross. She also visited many hospitals and made contact with nurses.
She was one of the founding members of the Turkish Patient Carers Association, which was established on 23 August 1933 and is now the Turkish Nurses Association. She also assumed the presidency of the association.
Elbi was the assistant of Besim Ömer Pasha, who worked to direct women to the nursing. She has visited Europe, India and North America. Because of the English language skills, she translated the documents sent by the American delegation into Turkish. Her work has been appreciated both in our country and abroad.
She was awarded many medals and decorations fro m Turkish an d foreign organisations, and certificates of com m endation from the Red Crescent, the Society fo r the Elimination of Illiteracy, and the Society of University Women in Turkey. She received the Florence Nightingale Medal from the International Committee of the Red Cross, distributed annually since 1921, on 21 November 1921 from Monsieur de Clousie, President of the French Salib-i Ahmer in Istanbul. She was the first Turkish woman to receive this medal. Elbi, who devotes her life to nursing and nursing education, was one of the founders of the foundation which was established in 1956, which is now known as Florence Nightingale Nursing Schools and Hospitals Foundation.
Safiye Hüseyin Elbi died on July 8, 1964, at Gureba Hospital and was buried in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery. I respectfully remember Safiye Hüseyin Elbi, an exemplary leader.