Brother to your aid

They hold the patient’s hand during surgery, apply ointment on wounds, feed spoonfuls of soup to the bed-ridden and comfort those in pain.

They hold the patient’s hand during surgery, apply ointment on wounds, feed spoonfuls of soup to the bed-ridden and comfort those in pain.

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Meet new-age nurses Jimmy Thomas and Sonal More, both 20-something men who work as nurses at PD Hinduja Hospital in Mahim.

Thomas and More are not exceptions. Rising salaries and opportunity to work overseas — especially with demand from the US, UK and Middle East — are drawing a growing number of men to a profession traditionally considered a female bastion.

At least 10 per cent of the state’s 60,000 practising nurses are male. “Ten years ago, nursing colleges only took female students. Now, 25 per cent of students pursuing nursing degrees are men,” said Dr Pravin Shingare, joint director of the Directorate of Medical Education and Research.

Walk into any new private or corporate hospital in the city and you’ll find ‘brothers’ (male nurses) walking around in starched white shirts and trousers.

While most hospitals still prefer to keep the number of male nurses low, Thane’s Jupiter Hospital has more brothers than sisters, in every department. “We’re as compassionate as female nurses,” said brother Sanju Sunny, who works in the hospital’s emergency ward.

Those hospitals that earlier did not recruit male nurses have changed their stance. Powai’s Dr L H Hiranandani Hospital hired its first batch of 25 male nurses this year. But patients are not all as receptive. When nurse Arun A.T. (25), approached an American woman at a Kerala hospital in 2007 with a syringe, she refused to let him come near her.

Last year, a male patient from the Middle East began shouting when Arun tried to give him his pills. “He insisted on a fair female nurse,” said Arun, who was part of that first batch of 25 to join Hiranandani Hospital, Powai.

But these are stray incidents in Arun’s three-year career in nursing.

“The mindset has changed. We used to associate nursing only with women, but now we’ve realised men are as good, sometimes better than women – for example, they’re better at locating a vein to put an intravenous drip, and using dialysis machines,” said Roselind Mathews, director of nursing at Fortis Hiranandani Hospital, Vashi.

In the 1990s, male nurses were posted in psychiatry or prisoners’ wards and operation theatres. Now, their sheer physical strength is seen as an advantage in handling patients in orthopedic and emergency wards.