Nurses working in governmental hospitals have become a rare breed, because most of them have defected to the private- hospitals, where the pay and working conditions are better. Some of them go and work in oil-rich Gulf countries for the same reason. There is a shortfall of 44,000 nurses and some private hospitals are now employing foreign nurses to help fill the gap. Dr Ahmed Sameh Farid, the Dean of the Cairo University's Faculty of Medicine, attributes the shortage in Egypt to the fact that society tends to look down on the nursing vocation. “Egyptian families do not encourage their children to go to nursing school or enrol in one of the faculties of nursing,” says Dr Farid. “Most of the girls who join nursing schools or institutes do so because they got bad marks at secondary school. Low wages then prompt them to go and work in Arab countries, once they've gained experience,” he adds. He believes that the solution is to increase their salaries, while the nursing educational system should be absorbed into the medical educational system. Dr Mohamed Murad, the director of the Heart Institute, agrees that their wages are too low, especially as nurses work so hard. “Every year, 35 nurses, well trained in dealing with cardiac patients, graduate from the institute, but only 5 per cent of them stay with us. The Ministry of Health distributes the rest haphazardly,” he complains. Dr Murad would like a nursing school to be established in every specialised hopsital, for example liver, kidney and tumour hospitals, so nurses can learn how to deal with these patients. “The Government and NGOs should work together to promote this profession. In fact, Al-Orman Charitable Association and Yale University in the US are working together to develop the work of nurses in the nursing school affiliated to the Heart Institute. “Even if nurses earn LE2,500 [around $450] per month, there's still a problem, because their education is too theoretical,” says Dr Hossam Zaki, adding that a nurse needs three years to be properly trained. Dr Zaki, who manages a private hospital, would like to see women from privileged backgrounds volunteer for just one day a month as nurses. Female entertainers could do this too, he said. He said that he would also like to see more young men train as nurses, thereby reducing unemployment. Dawlat Saeed, who works in ICU at Qasr Al-Aini Hospital, does 11 nightshifts from 8pm to 8am per month, for which she gets paid LE 500 ($90). Youssef Mohamed, a male nurse and a graduate of the Faculty of Nursing, Qasr Al-Aini Hospital, told Akhbar Al-Youm weekly newspaper that he earned LE1,300 ($325) per month, which is better than staying at home doing nothing all day. ”But I have to work really hard for my money,” he complains. Ministry of Health spokesman Dr Abdul-Rahman Chahin admits that low salaries and bonuses forces many nurses to go and work in the Gulf. “The Ministry has started a programme to increase the three-year nursing school course to five years, in collaboration with the UK's Hall University. “We aim to graduate 260,000 nurses by 2020. They will all do the five-year course,” Dr Chahin says. This year, almost 1,400 nurses will graduate from 12 institutes nationwide.
