Dubai: Salma Al Sharhan was the UAE’s first and oldest nurse.
Known as the ‘Florence Nightingale of the UAE’, Salma died in February in Ras Al Khaimah after succumbing to age-related diseases.
She was 80.
His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, had offered his condolences to the Al Sharhan family on the death of Salma.
Salma was affectionately called the Florence Nightingale of the UAE after the English woman widely regarded as the founder of modern nursing.
Salma, who never married, started her career in the early 1960s. She was trained in nursing by the British Health Mission.
In the early days, she would walk to reach her patients, even those in the mountains in Ras Al Khaimah.
In 2010, Salma was honoured by His Highness Shaikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, in appreciation of her outstanding contributions to nursing.
She also won the Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences asappreciation for her work in the same year.
Salma was born in the early 1930s and when she was 14 years old, a shaikh in Ras Al Khaimah chose her to be a nurse and she was trained at Al Nakheel Pharmacy, which served the entire emirate.
She was trained by the first doctor in Ras Al Khaimah, a British national who taught her the basics of nursing.
