London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Claire Bertschinger, Director of Tropical Nursing Studies, has been made a Dame in the New Year Honours List, for services to Nursing and to International Humanitarian Aid. She has provided nursing care in some of the harshest environments around the world and was the inspiration for Bob Geldof to organise the Band Aid charity and Live Aid.

Dame Claire said, “I am most honoured to be appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year’s 2010 Honours List, which has come as an enormous surprise to me. I am deeply moved to be receiving it in recognition of my many and varied nursing endeavours over the years. Since retiring from field-work, I have trained other medical professionals to work in resource poor settings and have continually sought to raise awareness of the key issues in global public health. Increasingly, I have become convinced of the centrality of education in making and sustaining any improvements in the developing world.

It is therefore my most sincere wish that in receiving this award, I will be able to raise further awareness of the need for education in resource poor settings. It has been shown that for women in particular, increased education not only radically improves their own health, but also that of their families and children. The empowerment of women, educationally and economically, is a major weapon in the fight against child mortality in the developing world.

I should just like to thank all of my family, friends and colleagues who have supported me in many wonderful and varied ways over the years and who have added immeasurable value to my life. I am deeply grateful for my experiences as a nurse, whether joy-filled or painful, and in accepting this most prestigious award I hereby renew my continued commitment to increase female education and independence, in the drive to eradicate poverty and ill-health in the developing world.”

Many newspapers picked up on the news. The Independent honoured “Third World heroine: Dr Claire Bertschinger and said, “Swiss-born Dr Claire Bertschinger first came to prominence in Britain during the Ethiopian famine of 1984, when she appeared in the BBC news report compiled by Michael Buerk that inspired Bob Geldof to launch the Band Aid appeal.

At the time she was working as a nurse for the International Red Cross, deciding among other things which handful of the thousands of children who came to the charity's two food stations each day would be fed. Before that she had worked in countries from Lebanon to Panama and Papua New Guinea, and afterwards she went on to treat the sick in Uganda, Sudan and Sierra Leone.

She now lectures at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and has written about her experiences in war zones, donating much of the money from her book to charity.

She won the Florence Nightingale medal in 1991, and in 2007 received the Human Rights in Nursing Award from the International Centre for Human Rights and Nursing Ethics.”

"The award of DBE to Claire Bertschinger is a testament to her sustained commitment to improving the health of disadvantaged people around the world," comments Professor Sir Andrew Haines, Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "Her key role in the formation of 'Live Aid' is nationally and internationally recognised. It has resulted in the mobilisation of major additional resources to address the health needs of the poorest as well as raising public awareness of the human cost of poverty and its attendant ill-health. Under her leadership the course leading to the Diploma of Tropical Nursing has gone from strength to strength. It has been an outstanding success in preparing large numbers of nurses to make significant contributions to world health. Both personally and on behalf of the School I am delighted to see her extraordinary achievements recognised in this way."