Male nurses extinct or resurgent?
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-05-13 18:32

There exist in China some vocations which still seem to be forbidden to one gender or another, like nursing for males.

The 2005 International Nurses Day, which fell on Thursday, again drew attention toward this monosexual profession.

Nursing has been an occupation in China for more than a century, since the establishment of the first Western hospital in the 19th century

Though its concepts and contents keep evolving, male nurses have consistently accounted for a very tiny proportion of the whole profession, said Yang Fengxian, director of the nursing department of the Gansu Provincial People's Hospital.

As a matter of fact, male nurses are extremely rare not only in the hospitals of middle and western Chinese cities like Nanchang and Lanzhou, but also in the metropolises like Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Many hospitals have no male nurses, Yang said. In Lanzhou, the capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, only one of the six municipal hospitals has male nurses, who are working to care for mental patients.

In Gansu Provincial People's Hospital, the province's biggest comprehensive hospital, there are 353 nurses, only three of which are men all older than 50.

But there are no accurate figures for the total number of the male nurses in Chinese many provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

Yang said she was certain that the percentage of male nurses is very limited. Apart from some specialized hospitals like psychiatric hospitals, male nurses are seldom seen in comprehensive hospitals, let alone smaller ones.

The situation is totally different in some other countries. In Australia, the ratio of the registered male nurses was 8.7 percent of the total in 1999. The United States reported 5.4 percent males in its nursing staff in 2000 and Britain's proportion of male nurses reached 10.21 percent in 2002.

The major reason leading to the tiny number of male nurses in China is the historical social bias that nursing, just like pre- school teaching, is a profession only suited for females, said Bai Fengxia, fundamental medical care expert at Lanzhou University.

The bias has brought pressure on schools to not train male nurses; made hospitals hesitant to employ male nurses; and left patients unwilling to choose male nurses, Bai said.

Experts say there should be no single-gender profession in the world, but also acknowledge that it will take a long time to thoroughly dissuade people of their deep-rooted bias.

Jin Zhongjie, headmaster of the Gansu Health School, says the problem of China's tiny male nurse proportion will never be fundamentally solved unless reform is carried out in the country's medical and nursing system.

In many western countries, he noted, patients first come to the nurses when hospitalized and then choose doctors with the counsel of the nurses.

But the situation is the opposite in China. Nurses here are always subordinate to doctors. They normally only follow doctors' advice to give injections, send medicines and measure patient temperatures.

Most Chinese nurses graduate from secondary nursing schools, and few have higher educational background, Jin said. Having less vocational knowledge and skills, they are put in a de facto inferior position to doctors.

But nurses also have some medical knowledge, not to mention their need to master the practice of nursing, said Fu Baoshan, director of the nursing department of the Third People's Hospital in Lanzhou.

China's hospitals always tend to pay more attention to medical treatment, neglecting the role of nursing results in a situation that fails to win nurses the recognition and respect that deserve, Fu said.

Despite this, Zhang Wen, who graduated from Hebei Chengde Medical College, still says he is proud to be a male nurse.

Regardless of the opposition from his family, Zhang is now working at the First Hospital attached to the prestigious Lanzhou University, because "it is the place where I could realize my dreams."

He is dedicated to the profession and will do everything he can to change people's views on male nurses.

"Patients still cannot accept nursing from males and I really face a lot of pressure," he says.

Still, despite discrimination, Zhang believes more males will become nurses, and nursing expert Zhang Jinyuan agrees.

From east China's Jiangxi Province, Zhang Jinyuan was awarded the Nightingale Prize in 2003. The senior nurse says nursing will be a promising occupation for more men, because, she argues, compared with females male nurses usually have advantages in strength, stamina, operation capabilities and the ability to deal with emergencies, which will make them more competent in surgery and beside the sickbeds.

She says as an increasing number of patients and hospitals will become aware of this and begin to change their attitude toward the male nurses.

The Gansu Health School enrolled 36 male students in their nursing major in 2004 and local hospitals already have shown a strong interest in this group.

Close

Today's Top News     Top China News
Central banker denies yuan revaluation on May 18         New rules to curb surging real estate price         Hu, Soong join hands for Straits peace         Beijing offers Taiwan more conveniences         China and Japan seek to smooth relations         Pressure on yuan revaluation won't work	Beijing offers Taiwan more conveniences       Angels of the ward, toast of the world       Illegal explosive trade targeted       Probe shows colliery workmen ignored laws       New regulation in Dalian beggars belief       Congestion takes its toll on bridge