Post WWI children healthcare in Central Slovenia as experienced by Angela Boškin, the first Slovenian home care nurse.
Keber Katharina (Ljubljana)

The paper will address children healthcare in the first post- WWI decade in current Slovenia. At the time when school physicians have been returning from the military service and paediatricians have been becoming more active as well, the first Slovenian home care nurse Angela Boškin played a significant role in caring for infants and mothers as well as in the organisation and development of the home care service. By analysing her work, the paper will attempt to reconstruct the demanding post-war social conditions that required healthcare improvements for all children. Her work is distinguished by two key achievements. The establishment in 1919 of the first Slovenian counselling service for mothers and infants in Jesenice, which she achieved in cooperation with physicians. Thus Ms Boškin laid the foundation for the social and healthcare work of the home care nurses. In 1922, she established the children’s shelter in a rundown and overcrowded orphanage in Bohoričeva street in Ljubljana, which developed into the first childcare institution (Zavod za socialno higiensko zaščito dece) where Angela Boškin worked as the first professionally qualified nurse.

Moderation: Christina Antenhofer, Innsbruck