BRONTE WELSH

1918-1997: public health activist, first Public Health Nurse to be recognized in St. Kitts 

   Bronte Agatha Welsh was born in Challengers Village on the 31st  December 1918, the first daughter of Evan and Annie Welsh and the second of their six children. Her early education took place in a small private school. However, at eight years of age she was enrolled at the Basseterre Girls' School. She remained there until she was twelve years of age and had passed through the 7th standard. 
  Bronte then went on to attend the Girls' High School. However life as a boarder in Basseterre proved to be rather difficult and she opted to return to her home and parents in Challengers and to commute daily to school. The long and uncertain hours of travel affected her work and at sixteen years of age she left school without having sat the CambridgeSchool Certificate examination.
  For about three years she engaged in private teaching, but her true love was nursing. She was able to enter the profession at the age of nineteen, eventually becoming a midwife. For a short while she stopped nursing to work in a pharmacy where she learnt much that would later be of use.
  In 1942 Welsh rejoined the staff at the CunninghamHospital where, for three years she worked as a general nurse until she obtained her certificate and attained the rank of staff nurse. She then branched off into Public Health or Preventive Nursing. She soon became the first Public Health Nurse to be recognized in
St. Kitts. 
  Her training took her to Trinidad in 1949 where she completed a course on the control of Social Diseases. In 1950 she went to Jamaica for further studies and specialized in the eradication of tuberculosis. On her return she single-handedly tested the children in all the schools in the Presidency and then vaccinated all those in need of immunization. This was a time when superstition dominated the way of thinking of the ordinary person in the street making it hard for him or her to accept the practices of modern medicine. In 1954 Welsh obtained a British Commonwealth Scholarship funded by the British Red Cross and found herself attached to the Westminster and Chelsea Hospital District Nursing Home pursuing a course in Home Nursing Care and Supervision.
 On her return to St. Kitts she was appointed Supervisor of Public Health Nursing and in 1957 she became the first local nurse to hold the position of Superintendent of Public Health Nursing. In 1963 Welsh was again in England studying Public Health Administration at the RoyalCollege of Nursing in London.
  Welsh retired from the Government Service in 1971 and emigrated to the United StatesVirgin Islands. She attended college in order to obtain the necessary credits for appointment in the nursing field there. On completion of her studies, she worked at the East Health Centre in St. Thomas and was eventually put in charge of a new project initiated by the Federal Government of the USA.
 Tragedy struck in 1979 when a fall injured Welsh's spine. Surgery proved unsuccessful and after some two years of treatment and therapy, she returned to St. Kitts confined to a wheel chair. However her spirit remained indomitable as she piloted her wheelchair to church services, ceremonies in Warner Park and other gatherings. She was determined to show that disability was no excuse for withdrawal from society.
  Welsh remained a lively conversationalist and gladly shared her recollections about her profession with friends and relatives. Finally she put it all on paper in the form of a booklet entitled Nursing - A Calling or a Career. The proceeds from this little publication went to assist the Red Cross in the purchase of a van for transporting the physically challenged.
The Primary School at Boyds Village was renamed Bronte Welsh in her honor on May 28th 1992. She housed clinic in her home for the benefit of her community.  
   Bronte Welsh died in August 1997.