A TOTAL of 355 nurses who have been working for more than 30 years, and about 1,000 other nurses were awarded yesterday at a ceremony held to mark International Nurses Day.

"I am proud to be a nurse, especially when patients are saved," said a nurse named Cui Xiuzhi at the awards ceremony held at Beijing University Shenzhen Hospital.

Cui has been working for more than 30 years in the traumatology and orthopedics department of Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in Bao'an District, and she has been taking care of paralyzed patients for 15 years.

Awardee Li Jing, 55, has been working as a nurse with Nan'ao People's Hospital in Longgang District for about 40 years. Li was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2001, but still continued to work.

"Besides giving shots and medicines to patients, I think giving them some guidelines and advice is equally important," said Li, who will retire in June. "Nurses nowadays receive more respect from society."

A new regulation safeguarding nurses' rights, the Nurse Regulation 2008, came into force yesterday, according to Jiang Hanping, director general of the municipal health bureau.

Jiang said the lack of nurses and inadequate nursing services in Shenzhen were still major problems, and low salaries discouraged people from taking up the profession and sticking with it.

"The new nurse regulation will have a positive impact on the health-care system, help standardize nurses' profession and improve their salaries and benefits," said Jiang.

There were 1.3 million nurses in the country by the end of 2007, according to the Ministry of Health. That worked out to only one nurse for every 1,000 people in the country, much less than the ratio of five nurses for every 1,000 people in many other countries.

Shenzhen Daily