Saudi women find steep learning curve in nursing

As taboos fall away in the nursing profession and more Saudi women are hired to give care to patients in hospitals and clinics, medical personnel are beginning to realize there is a learning curve in how to approach the job.
Many new Saudi nurses have expressed dislike and frustration over the type of work they are required to perform in hospitals. Many complained about the demands of the job at a recent Jeddah conference to commemorate the International Nurses Day.
“Our job duties require that we have sometimes to deal with difficult situations, which is understandable and part of the job,” said Manish Archie, an Indian nurse who came to Saudi Arabia nine years ago. “However, what I can’t understand is that some people use us to do things that another female nurse would refrain from doing for religious reasons. And we are asked frequently to do night shifts.”
Archie told Arab News that some female nurses refuse to perform catheterization on a male patient, saying either that it is not allowed in Islam or because she feels embarrassed in performing the task.
“Now I understand the local culture, but some people go too far,” she said.
Sabah Abu Zinadah, chief of the Supreme Nursing Council, told Arab News: “No health practitioner can refuse to do any duty of the job, regardless of the reasons. Any refusal to perform certain duties is considered dereliction of duty. Supervisors should take action against those ‘ultra-conservative’ female nurses who fail to do their job.” She found it unacceptable that some Arab or even Muslim female nurses refuse to perform certain tasks for reasons that have to do with the community or even with religion.
“Female nurses must deal with male patients as people, not as persons of a certain gender,” Zinadah said. “I see no religious justification for their behavior. Even during the Prophet’s (pbuh) days there were no male nurses. They were all female. And they used to perform any duties required of them.”
Aishah As-Samnoudi, a nursing supervisor in a private hospital who worked in the UAE before working in Saudi Arabia, is a little more accommodating.
She said that it’s understandable that some Saudi or Arab nurses refuse to do certain nursing duties.
“We sometimes give these duties to male nurses, or to the female nurses who wouldn’t object. We just do not want anyone to be denied of the health care they deserve,” she said.
Dalia Ar Rawi, who has been a nurse for three years, said that “when we refrain from doing something, it’s not because we want to escape duty or work. It’s because of the culture of our society that frowns on a woman having contact with someone who is not a mahrem (close male relatives).”
And then there are functions that may be beneath them. “Why should I change the linens of a man’s bed?” Ar Rawi said. “And why females have to do this? This is humiliating.”
It’s a man’s job to change the linens of a man’s bed. And there are females who wouldn’t mind doing so.”