Britain wants more male nurses

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32661, 17 July 1971, Page 7

Britain wants more male nurses

(By

SUSAN ROGERS)

LONDON. The British health authorities are going all out to attract male nurses into the nation’s ■hospitals. The United States is beginning to follow suit, and so are some European hospitals. And with observers studying the schemes from a dozen or more industrial nations, it may not be long, say the experts, before there will be almost as many male nurses as women nurses. Twenty years ago, the sight of a male nurse in a general hospital was a rarity. 'Today in Britain, one in every eight nurses is a man. Within the next 10 years, it 'may be one in every two. ■ What is more, this startiling influx has official backing. According to Britain’s Ministry of Health and other medical bodies, men can do the job of nursing at least as I well as women. LESS SQUEAMISH i They are less squeamish, physically stronger, less prone to minor illness, and. I most important of all, they are likely to stick to the job for life. 1 Until recently, men were ■ employed as nurses only in ‘ mental hospitals where their ' strength was necessary to 'control disturbed patients. But this attitude is disappearing fast, and hospitals 'are going all out to attract ■men into the nursing profession.

Says one male nurse, Denis Cobell: "The myth that nurs-

ing is strictly a woman’s profession is slowly ' being eroded. Eventually, there ■ must be complete equality i between the sexes unless 'there is to be a breakdown ■in the hospital service.”

Writing in a recent edition of “Guy’s Hospital Gazette,” he adds: "Actually, men have been nurses for centuries. Under the guise of monks, knights hospitaler, and serving brothers, they cared for the wounded in the crusades." Britain’s Ministry of Health is also convinced that have an important part to play in the hospital ward. So convinced that it recently launched a publicity drive to attract more male schoolleavers into nursing.

It has prepared literature for schools which emphasises that nursing is far from being a “cissy”’ job, for women only. Says a Ministry spokesman: “It has become realised since the war that men can nurse patients just as competently and kindly as women.

NO EMBARRASSMENT “In fact, many people actually prefer to be looked after by male nurses. Male patients, for instance, do not get embarrassed when they have to take their clothes off.”

So keen is the Ministry to attract more male recruits that it has all but dropped the old-fashioned image of nursing as a vocation, and emphasises it instead as a financially worth - while career.

An official career structure introduced three years ago which made it possible for a recruit to judge his chances of promotion at a glance, and even to plot a course to the top, is now beginning to have its effectsSays the Ministry: “The effect of this was to make nursing more attractive to men. They began to realise that one did not just enter as a staff nurse and remain there forever, but that one could rise to being chief nursing officer of a large group of hospitals, with a lot of responsibility and a salary which compares well witn that of an executive in industry.” Despite the old myth that it is more natural for women to look after the sick, the

plain fact is that on the whole male nurses are a far better proposition. The biggest point in their favour is that when they join they invariably stay-in complete contrast to women, who have a drop-out rate of more than 50 per cent, either during or after training-

As in many other fields, S girls have a habit of E to get married and to bring up families. Although some return when their children are grown up, this enormous drain costs the health authorities millions of pounds evefy year as well as giving major headaches to those responsible for staffing already shorthanded hospitals. “Men do tend to make nursing more of a life-long career. Though some drop out during training, once they qualify they usually remain for good.” Another factor which works in favour of the men is the reluctance of many Soung girls today to undergo le demanding training in hospitals, especially when there are often easier and better-paid jobs available elsewhere. GIRL SHORTAGE

But hospitals are also turning to men simply because there are not enough girls of the right age to go round at the moment. Says the Ministry of Health: “For some reason, there were more boys than girls bom after the war and in the early 50s. As a result, girls of 18—the age when nurses begin their training—are in short supply.”

Perhaps the best argument for men going into nursing is put forward by the women nurses themselves. They say that the influx of men will not only brighten up hospital life, but will also give nursing as a whole a new image. Putting their case in the “British Hospital Journal” recently, the women said: “The time is overdue for the role and status of the nurse to be subject to complete reappraisal.