EXECUTIVE director of the Institute of Jamaica, Vivian Crawford, says the local nursing fraternity should lobby to have the remains of nursing pioneer and war heroine Mary Seacole reinterred in Jamaica.

"In England they are doing quite a lot for her. In fact, they're having a statue of her unveiled, they're working towards that, but her remains should be here," Crawford told the Observer after the crowning of the 2008/2009 Nurse of the Year at the Hilton Kingston Saturday.

Seacole, who was born Mary Grant in Kingston in 1805, is most noted for treating sick and wounded soldiers at her boarding house in Crimea during the war of 1854-1856. Her work was, however, for a long time overshadowed by that of Florence Nightingale mainly because of racial and gender prejudices.

"She was Jamaica's most outstanding nurse," said Crawford. "As the Nurses Association, I think we should lobby for her remains to be brought to Jamaica and I propose that on the anniversary of her birth we lay a floral tribute at the spot where she was born," he added.

In her early years, Seacole lived at 7 East Street in Kingston, the very spot on which the National Library of Jamaica now stands.

Her remains are now at St Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green, London, where she was laid to rest in 1881.

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