Elise Sørensen

Sørensen was born on 2 July 1903 in Kalundborg to Valdemar Sofus and Ane Dorthea (née Andersen) and was educated in Holbæk and Viborg. She worked as a home care nurse from 1929, including over twenty years at a health insurance company in Ordrup-Skovshoved.^[1]

In 1953 her sister had an ostomy operation (a procedure that takes the end of the intestine out through the abdomen, allowing waste to exit via a surgically created stoma).^[3] After the operation, Sørensen's sister was uncomfortable going outside due to fear that stoma might leak, due to the metal/glass capsules or fabric/rubber bags that people used at the time.^[4][5] Sørensen then created the world's first disposable ostomy bag attachable through an adhesive ring.^[6] With help from a lawyer from the Danish Nurses' Association, she applied for a patent for her invention in 1954 and approached the plastics manufacturer Aage Louis-Hansen for assistance with putting the bag into wider production. Louis-Hansen initially declined, but was persuaded to agree by his wife, Johanne Louis-Hansen, who was also a nurse and saw the clinical need. Sørensen paid for the initial manufacturing costs herself and oversaw testing of the bags on patients at various institutions. Louis-Hansen founded the company Coloplast in 1957 on the basis of Sørensen's invention.^[1]

Sørensen ceased working in 1957 due to issues with depression. She died on 5 July 1977 in a psychiatric hospital where she had spent her final years.^[1]