Wanted: More male nurses at Arakan State’s healthcare facilities 

By Admin 26 Feb 2023

DMG Newsroom
26 February 2023, Sittwe

A shortage of male nurses at public health and treatment centres in Arakan State is leading to calls from state health officials for more men to enter the profession.

Those calls are up against long-held perceptions of nursing as a job for women, however. 

“Men are less interested in nursing,” Daw Nu Nu Zan, the principal of Sittwe’s Nursing and Midwifery Training School, told DMG. “The nursing school does not have a limit on how many men will be accepted. Men themselves do not apply for nursing school due to lack of interest. Men who are interested in this nursing course can also apply to the nursing school if they meet the specified matriculation score.”

Sixty-eight male and 437 female aspiring nurses are currently studying at Sittwe’s Nursing and Midwifery Training School.

There are young men who are interested in medical courses, but there are fewer male nurses due to the large number of men attending health officer courses rather than nursing courses, according to health workers.

One factor motivating the push for more men as nurses is the notion that certain medical issues are best discussed male-to-male, according to healthcare workers in the field.

 “As a female nurse, I have to cast off shyness. Sometimes, when dealing with men with diseases related to the urinary tract and genitals, the female nurse is shy, so it would be more convenient if there were male nurses,” said Ma Wai Wai Lwin, a nurse at Sittwe General Hospital.

 A second Arakan State-based Nursing and Midwifery Training School will be opened in Kyaukphyu in the 2023-24 academic year due to the high demand for healthcare workers in Arakan State, according to the state’s Department of Public Health (DPH).