Dame Claire Bertschinger, DBE, DL (born 1953) is an

Anglo Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from, the Angles, England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term '' Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people ...

-Swiss

nurse Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...

and advocate on behalf of suffering people in the

developing world A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

. Her work in Ethiopia in 1984 inspired Band Aid and subsequently

Live Aid Live Aid was a multi-venue benefit concert held on Saturday 13 July 1985, as well as a music-based fundraising initiative. The original event was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise further funds for relief of the 1983–1985 fami ...

, the biggest relief programme ever mounted. Bertschinger received the

Florence Nightingale Medal The Florence Nightingale Medal is an international award presented to those distinguished in nursing and named after British nurse Florence Nightingale. The medal was established in 1912 by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), f ...

in 1991 for her work in nursing, and was made a

Dame ''Dame'' is an honorific title and the feminine form of address for the honour of damehood in many Christian chivalric orders, as well as the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British honours system and those of several oth ...

by Queen

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

in 2010 for "services to Nursing and to International Humanitarian Aid".

Biography

The daughter of a Swiss father and British mother, Bertschinger was brought up in Sheering near

Bishop's Stortford Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, just west of the M11 motorway on the county boundary with Essex, north-east of central London, and by rail from Liverpool Street station. Stortford had an estimated po ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

Dyslexic Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

, she could barely read or write until she was 14. After her parents got a television in the 1960s, one of the first films she watched was ''

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness ''The Inn of the Sixth Happiness'' is a 1958 20th Century Fox film based on the true story of Gladys Aylward, a tenacious British woman, who became a missionary in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Directed by Mark Robson, who receive ...

'' starring

Ingrid Bergman Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.Obituary ''Variety'', 1 September 1982. With a career spanning five decades, she is often ...

playing the role of

Gladys Aylward Gladys May Aylward (24 February 1902 – 3 January 1970) was a British-born evangelical Christian missionary to China, whose story was told in the book ''The Small Woman'', by Alan Burgess, published in 1957, and made into the film ''The Inn of ...

, an English missionary to China in the 1930s who is caught up in the Japanese invasion. Bertschinger thought: "I could do that. That's what I want to do." She graduated from

Brunel University Brunel University London is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It was founded in 1966 and named after the Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In June 1 ...

with an MSc degree in Medical Anthropology in 1997. Bertschinger is a

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

, practising

Nichiren Buddhism Nichiren Buddhism ( ja, 日蓮仏教), also known as Hokkeshū ( ja, 法華宗, meaning ''Lotus Sect'') is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren (1222–1282) and is one of ...

. She became a member of the global Buddhist organization

Soka Gakkai International Soka Gakkai International (SGI) is an international Nichiren Buddhist organisation founded in 1975 by Daisaku Ikeda, as an umbrella organization of Soka Gakkai, which declares approximately 12 million adherents in 192 countries and territories ...

in 1994. Her autobiographical book, ''Moving Mountains'', was published in 2005. The book describes her global experiences and her spiritual motivation that led her to Buddhism. Part of the royalties from the book go to The African Children's Educational Trust, a British charity.

Career

After training and working as a nurse in the UK, Bertschinger became a medic on

Operation Drake Operation Drake (1978–1980) was a round-the-world voyage with the participation of young people from many countries, sailing in the brigantine Eye of the Wind. She left Plymouth in October 1978 and returned to London two years later, in December ...

, an expedition with Colonel John Blashford-Snell and the

Scientific Exploration Society Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

in Panama,

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

and

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

. After this experience, she joined the emergency disaster relief group of the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

(ICRC), allowed to attend war locations thanks to her dual-nationality. Through this she has worked in over a dozen zones of conflict including

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

and

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

. She also worked at ICRC headquarters in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

, Switzerland as training officer in the Health Division. Bertschinger is an ambassador and Trustee for The African Children's Educational Trust, Patron for Promise Nepal, and a voluntary worker for the charity

Age UK Age UK is a registered charity in the United Kingdom, formed on 25 February 2009, and launched on 1 April 2009, which combined the operations of the previously separate charities Age Concern England and Help the Aged to form the UK's largest cha ...

. In 2010, Bertschinger was honoured as

Dame Commander of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

by the Queen

in the New Year Honours List, for services to Nursing and to International Humanitarian Aid. Bertschinger was made a Deputy Lieutenant of Hertfordshire in 2012. As of 2016, she is Director for the Diploma in Tropical Nursing course at the

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is a public research university in Bloomsbury, central London, and a member institution of the University of London that specialises in public health and tropical medicine. The inst ...

Ethiopia

In 1984, Bertschinger was working as an ICRC field nurse located in

Mekele Mekelle ( ti, መቐለ, am, መቀሌ, mäqälle, mek’elē) or Mekele is a special zone and capital of the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Mekelle was formerly the capital of Enderta awraja in Tigray. It is located around north of the Ethiopi ...

, the capital of

Tigray Province Tigray Province (Amharic and ), also known as Tigre ( tigrē), was a historical province of northern Ethiopia that overlayed the present day Afar and Tigray regions. Akele Guzai borders with the Tigray province It was one It encompassed most o ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

during the famine of 1984. She ran a feeding centre that could only accept 60 to 70 new children at a time when thousands more were in need of food. As a young nurse, she had to decide who would and would not receive food. Those she couldn't help had little hope of survival, and when interviewed about the pain of having to make such critical decisions, she said "I felt like a Nazi commandant, deciding who would live and who would die. Playing God broke my heart." When a

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

crew appeared with reporter

Michael Buerk Michael Duncan Buerk (born 18 February 1946) is a British journalist and newsreader. He presented BBC News from 1973 to 2002 and has been the host of BBC Radio 4's ''The Moral Maze'' since 1990. He was also the presenter of BBC One's docudrama ...

, Bertschinger gladly told her story to highlight the problems. While Buerk thought Bertschinger was a hero, and edited his report to highlight this, Bertschinger said that her first impression of Buerk was that of an arrogant prat who asked irrelevant questions. Buerk's initial news report on Bertschinger's work, which was broadcast on 23 October 1984, inspired the watching

Bob Geldof Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof (; born 5 October 1951) is an Irish singer-songwriter, and political activist. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s as lead singer of the Rock music in Ireland, Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats, who achieved ...

to launch Band Aid. This was followed by

in 1985, the biggest relief programme ever mounted, which raised more than £150m and saved an estimated 2m lives in Africa. In 2004, Bertschinger returned to Ethiopia with Buerk, to assess the situation 20 years on to make the programme ''Ethiopia: A Journey with Michael Buerk''. After that visit, Bertschinger said "Education is the key to the future for resource-poor settings. It opens doors and it radically improves people's health, particularly for women."

Awards

* 1986: Bish Medal from the Scientific Exploration Society. * 1991:

from the International Committee of the Red Cross. * 2005: ''Women of the Year, Window to the World Award''. * 2007: Human Rights and Nursing Awards 2007, from the International Centre for Nursing Ethics (ICNE), in the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Surrey. * 2008: Honorary degree of

Doctor of Social Science The Doctor of Social Science (DSocSci, SScD or DSS) degree is the highest degree offered by some universities in the field of social sciences, for which other universities confer a Ph.D. Like the PhD, it is recognized as a terminal research degree ...

s, Brunel University. * 2010: Voted one of the ''Top 20 Most Influential People in the Nursing Field'' by Masters in Nursing Online. * 2010:

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(DBE) in the

2010 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2010 were announced on 31 December 2009 in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Cook Islands, Barbados, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Saint Lucia, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Christopher and NevisSaint Christ ...

. * 2010: Honorary degree of Doctor of Education, Robert Gordon University. * 2010: Honorary degree of Doctor of Health Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University. * 2011: Honorary degree of Doctor of Staffordshire University. * 2011: Honorary degree of Doctor of Science, De Montfort University. * 2012: Voted one of the ''Five formidable women who shaped the Red Cross'' by the

British Red Cross The British Red Cross Society is the United Kingdom body of the worldwide neutral and impartial humanitarian network the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The society was formed in 1870, and is a registered charity with more ...

. * 2012: Voted one of ''The 10 most influential female nurses of all time'' by Scrubs Magazine. * 2012: Deputy Lieutenant of

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

. * 2013: BBC's 100 women.

References

External links

Bio
at the London School of Tropical Medicine
Video interview by BBC's "Hardtalk"Audio interview with BBC Radio4 Woman's HourYear of birth
findmypast.co.uk; accessed 15 June 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bertschinger, Claire 1953 births Date of birth missing (living people) People from Bishop's Stortford Living people Swiss people of English descent British people of Swiss descent British Buddhists British women nurses Converts to Buddhism Converts to Sōka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhists Swiss Buddhists Swiss nurses Alumni of Brunel University London Academics of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Members of Sōka Gakkai Deputy Lieutenants of Hertfordshire BBC 100 Women Florence Nightingale Medal recipients