Dubai: The UAE Ministry of Health has launched a national campaign to attract more potential students to a nursing career, said Dr Yousuf Al Sarkal, Assistant Undersecretary for the Ministry of Health’s Hospital sector, on Wednesday.
Both female and male nurses must undertake technical, administrative, educational, consulting, and social functions while performing their nursing duties, including diagnosis, planning and execution to offer health care to individuals and the society.
Dr Al Sarkal said the campaign aims to attract UAE nationals to the career and will cooperate with partners that work on Emiratisation to improve the image of the profession.
Dr Sumaya Mohammad Abbas, director of the Ministry of Health’s Nursing Department, said three major aspects were introduced as part of the initiative.
The first aspect includes new awards billed as the Nurse Friendly Hospital and the Salma Award for Nursing Innovation for incentivising the profession.
The second will focus on the role of the media in disseminating information to change the stereotype about nurses. As part of a media campaign, the ministry will announce a contest and prizes to create a cartoon character to represent the nurses that would be used in a smart application and to launch games to promote the nursing profession among children and teenagers.
The third aspect includes rehabilitation and education to focus on introducing nursing in early public education and training through the roll-out of the ‘Little Nurse’ programme, introducing the profession in the curriculum of kindergarten and primary students. Nursing will also be highlighted in career guidance programmes to attract secondary school students to take up the profession.
Currently, it has attracted 40 secondary school students for the 2015-2016 session in Sharjah University and RAK University, in addition to the technical colleges in universities in Sharjah and Fujairah. To further enhance nursing, the ministry also offered scholarships for undergraduate programmes in nursing in cooperation with the local universities and awarded 19 scholarships to nurses to continue pursue a postgraduate degree.
Dr Sumaya said that the ministry was planning to increase social awareness through the launch of another initiative ‘Rahma’, popularising the profession among Emirati families.
