Lithuanian nurse honoured in London
Jovita Demyskyte, lecturer in nursing at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences in Kaunas, was entered in the “Book of Honour” in the Florence Nightingale Museum at a ceremony on 19 July 2018 attended by Dame Eileen Sills (Chief Nurse at St Thomas’ and Guys Hospital) and HE Mr Renatas Norkus, Lithuanian Ambassador to the UK.
Jovita and started working as a surgical nurse in 1995 and achieved an MSc in nursing science in 2001. She has a particular interest in palliative care. A university lecturer since 1999, she also worked part-time as a registered nurse from 2007 to 2012 at the Kaunas Nursing Hospital (Kaunas Hospice whose work was inspired by a visit by Dame Cicely Saunders in 1996.
Since 2011, Jovita has been teaching modern palliative care to some 50-60 BSc nursing students each year and leads a postgraduate course “Palliative Care” for up to 150 health care professionals. A council member of Lithuanian Association of Palliative Medicine, she is the main organizer of the Association’s annual conference, which brings together about 200 participants from across Lithuania and neighbouring countries.
The Book of Honour in the Florence Nightingale Museum at St Thomas’s Hospital in London marks the contribution of individual nurses to their profession.
Palliative care is a relatively new concept in Lithuania but it has developed significantly over the last 20 years with centres in most major cities. It is one of the areas of activity supported by the British-Lithuanian charity The Tiltas Trust.
