Victoria Brú Sánchez

Victoria was born in Managua, in the province of La Habana. From a very young age she felt a calling for nursing, which is why she attended to and cared for sick family members and friends.

She entered the nursing school of the "Número Uno" hospital in 1903 and graduated in 1906. She obtained a position at the Remedios hospital and in 1907 she moved to the "Número Uno" hospital, today "General Calixto García Íñiguez", in Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba.

On February 27, 1906, upon the end of the II American intervention in the country and Dr. Matías Duque assuming the position of Secretary of Health and Public Welfare, he appointed a group of young Cuban nurses to assume the positions of responsibility that, until then, had been held by American nurses. Among them was Victoria, promoted to Superintendent of the Nursing School of the Santiago de Cuba hospital.

With that same position she was later transferred to the Puerto Príncipe hospital, today Camagüey, and that same year, to the Psychiatric hospital of La Habana (Mazorra).

On January 21, 1910 she was appointed Superintendent of the "Número Uno" hospital and its Nursing School, where she worked for 4 years.

On March 14, 1914 she was transferred to the Cienfuegos hospital, with the same responsibility. She was performing these duties when, in 1918, a terrible influenza epidemic was declared.

When this disease began to wreak great havoc among the population, Victoria was on leave due to health problems, but even during her absence news reached her of the victims claimed by the terrible epidemic. The hospital was full of sick patients, the work was excessive. In the poor neighborhoods of the city the disease claimed more victims and its effects were more severe.

Victoria Brú returned to work immediately and, accompanied by her students, went from house to house ordering hygienic measures, isolating the sick, cleaning the children, giving words of encouragement to the dying.

She became a victim of the very epidemic that confined her to bed for several days. Still not fully recovered and observing that the illness was worsening and that the population was being decimated by its toll, she rose from her sickbed and resumed her work caring for her patients. Her body, still very weak, was seized again by the disease that led to her death on December 7 of that year 1918.

She thus became a martyr of the humanitarian profession she had chosen, following her strong calling.

The entire city of Cienfuegos, which knew of her works of solidarity, demonstrated its admiration and respect at her funeral, which was a true show of popular mourning. The local newspapers dedicated entire pages to her on the occasion of her mourned death, and in the Cienfuegos hospital, a ward of patients bears her name and has a commemorative plaque to perpetuate her memory.

Source: Revista Cubana de Enfermería