Sabah Abu Zinadah, chief of the Supreme Nursing Council:
No health practitioner can refuse to do any duty of the job, regardless of the reasons. Any refusal to perform certain duties is considered dereliction of duty. Supervisors should take action against those ‘ultra-conservative’ female nurses who fail to do their job. (…)
Female nurses must deal with male patients as people, not as persons of a certain gender. I see no religious justification for their behavior. Even during the Prophet’s (pbuh) days there were no male nurses. They were all female. And they used to perform any duties required of them.
Her comments come few days after local media reported that a group of female nurses in the eastern region of al-Ahsa went on strike to protest treating male patients because they find it embarrassing and in violation of their religious and social values.
Riyadh Bureau 