Today is Nurse’s Day and we want to tell you about the situation of this medical specialty in the country. Below we will inform you about the number of these types of professionals and how nurses work in the country.
Specifically, in Mexico, there are about 315 thousand nurses registered in the health system. Of this number, 45 percent are professional nurses, with bachelor’s degrees, as well as professionals with nursing specialties and technicians; Those from private hospitals are not registered, as Rosa Amarilis Zárate Grajales, director of the National School of Nursing and Midwifery (ENEO).
Nursing professionals are present in the important acts of life
Nursing professionals are present in the important acts of life, from birth to death, going through the transitions of illness and health. They accompany the sick and their families; They are present when there are happy or fatal diagnoses, they accompany people to experience anguish or mourning, and they assist and rehabilitate when solving problems.
Zárate Grújales has expressed that “gradually, the health system is transitioning to have a greater number of professional nurses. So far, approximately 80 percent are women and 20 percent men. Likewise, the director recognized that there is a profound shortage of these professionals, which makes the job market demand a greater number, which is why it is a profession where there are almost never unemployed, but they are underemployed, that is, they graduate from a degree and do the work of an assistant because there are not enough places for professional nurses.
It is an eminently female profession
In Mexico, there are 2.9 nurses per thousand inhabitants, when nations like Chile have 6.5 per thousand and “although an average of 25 thousand nursing professionals graduate each year in the country, there are not enough places to hire them, which has increased the offer in private hospitals, which have high demand and lower salaries”.
ENEO, which is the largest nursing school in Mexico and, together with the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is the best positioned in Latin America and the one with the longest tradition. At UNAM it is the number seven career in terms of demand, and it is no longer a second option career, but the first choice of young applicants.
Regarding this, Rosa Amarilis Zárate Grajales has expressed that “we are transitioning to a doctoral program in Nursing. The postgraduate prepares in various ways: with fields of specialization where more skills are developed in a subject; with a master’s degree, which prepares them to begin research rigorously and to do good-quality teaching, and now the doctorate will serve to train as a specialist and do original research in their field of knowledge”.
What is clear is that nursing is an eminently female profession and this is shown by the data: in nursing schools, enrollment is 15 to 18 percent male.