The Nursing Profession in Jordan

28 Apr 2010 10 Comments

by Emi in Jordan

True Story: An expat British woman was hospitalized in Jordan. She was placed on an I.V. The nurse walked out of the room. A while later the woman had to use the restroom and when she sat up, she noticed that the injection port on the cannula was open and her blood was pouring out on the floor. She called for help but no one responded, so she closed the injection port herself and waited. No one came back to her room for a full 4 hours. If she had not noticed that she was bleeding – if she had fallen asleep – would she have been alive 4 hours later?

True Story: A different woman – Jordanian this time – was hospitalized. During her stay, a nurse walked into her room and picked up bloody gauze that was strewn on the floor – with ungloved hands. She then began to prepare an injection for the woman (she never washed her hands after picking up the bloody gauze), and then while preparing the solution for injection, she jammed the syringe – which, of course, should have been sterile – into the bed mattress as “holding place.” The woman asked the nurse to wash her hands and use a sterile needle and the nurse was surprised.

There are many other stories that I’ve heard or witnessed during our time in Jordan, but these are two recent stories that come to mind.

Jordan has fantastic doctors, so what’s going on with nurses in Jordan? The condition of most hospitals is abominable (third world style), made worse by apathetic nurses who don’t follow the simplest rules of hygiene and care.

The one thing that I do know about the nursing profession here is the way it is perceived; nurses have a reputation of being “loose women” – I have no idea if that is true or deserved – and good families don’t want their daughters involved in the profession.

It is time for public perceptions to change. It is time for the devoted, caring and intelligent young women of Jordan to step forward and make a difference in Jordanian medical care.

As said by Florence Nightingale, “Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.”

There is a conference this week at Le Meridien Hotel. “Nurses’ wages, incentives and work environment are among several issues being highlighted in the international conference.” … “At the opening of the two-day event, HRH Princess Muna, who chairs the JNC, called on participants to revise current policies related to the profession.”

For more information, please visit the website of the Jordanian Nursing Council.