Creación de la primera escuela de enfermería en Cataluña: la Escuela de Enfermeras de Santa Madrona (Barcelona, 1917)

Abstract

This article discusses how the Montepío of Santa Madrona, a Catholic women's association founded in 1900 in Barcelona, created the first nursing school in Catalonia, only the third in Spain at the time. With an innovative perspective on the concept of nursing, the Montepío of Santa Madrona founded a theoretical-practical training centre for women. The main objectives were to promote professional training in the field of nursing, to facilitate access to this training for working-class women, enabling them to leave precarious employment situations, to supply the Montepío's health centres with its own graduates and, finally, to promote their projects in Barcelona and increase its number of members. The Santa Madrona Nursing School became the main training centre for nurses in Barcelona over the following decades, and in this investigation we analyse how the project came about and the objectives it wanted to reach.