As the 19th century drew to a close, Omaha and Council Bluffs still bore the look of frontier towns. They brought easterners seeking new opportunity and immigrants in search of a better life. In these bustling cities of promise, they found the roads paved not with gold but dirt.

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A Declaration of War on Misery

For most, workdays were long and wages were low. Health insurance was decades away and hospitals were primitive and costly. Doctors had just found the link between germs and disease, and contagious illnesses were a deadly predator. The only inoculations were for anthrax and rabies. It was not a time to be sick or poor – to be both could be fatal.

Life expectancy at that time was 44 years of age, but only for white females. It was less for everyone else. Medicine meant mostly “patent medicine,”; which carried wild claims and rare cure. Tuberculosis was rampant and influenza was a death sentence. Diarrhea caused not just discomfort but infant mortality.

In 1896, Anna Millard Rogers founded the Visiting Nurse Association. Her army was a dedicated and innovative band of visiting nurses who, as we now know, invented home health care.

The VNA reaches out to all individuals in the community regardless of age, race complexity of care or ability to pay. All people are treated with dignity and respect. To truly help the sick, we must first gain their trust. It allows us to help people when illness makes them vulnerable and afraid, and it lets us care for them as people as well as patients.

The VNA is strong and stable. We’ve built many collaborative relationships and deliver a wide range of programs. Our staff brings vast energy and commitment to our work – to comfort and care for those in need. That need comes in many faces including the ill, the injured, the aged, the newborn and the homeless. What has not changed in more than a century is our mission: to foster the dignity and well–being of the residents of our communities.