A shortage of nurses across the United Arab Emirates amid the country’s booming health sector is driving more men across the country to join the front line of care.
Experts say more men working as nurses is a welcome sign of diversity that improves the quality of care for patients’ hospital and healthcare settings, saying the UAE needs both male and female nurses to care for patients in view of the patients’ cultural demands.
Demand for male nurses increase
Saed Salaymeh, nursing director at Burjeel Hospital, Dubai, told Al Arabiya English that the demand for nurses in the UAE is increasing as the country continues to expand, leading to a boom in the number of healthcare facilities.
He too said more men are joining the frontline in care and said more male nurses are in demand due to the changing needs of the country.
“We have hospitals or facilities in settings where there is a large concentration of construction workers, for example, and this is good to have male nurses,” he explained.
Salaymeh believes the average ratio nurses across the country is about 14 percent to their female counterparts – up from about 8 percent a handful of years go. Across the Bujeel Holdings group in the UAE, male nurses now make up about 35 percent of their total nursing workforce.
Read Full Story: AlArabiya
