¡@BEIJING, May 12(Xinhuanet)-- China now has 1.3 million nurses, but is still in great demand, said health officials here marking the International Nurse Day on Thursday.

By the end of 2004, the number of nurses had reached 1.308 million, up 20,000 over the previous year, according to the Ministry of Health on the honoring ceremony of"Outstanding nursesand nursing departments of China" at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

About 1,000 Chinese has one nurse on the average, but the ratiois far lower than that in most countries, which is four to five per thousand, said Huang Renjian, president of Chinese Nursing Society.

Moreover, most nurses are working in big cities, the rural and western regions are in desperate need of nurses, Huang said.

This year, the Ministry of Health gave the honor to 149 nurses and 224 nursing departments in hospitals throughout the country.

At present, about one sickbed has 0.4 nurse in big hospitals. One nurse on a night shift has to take care of 40 patients in the inpatient department, according to Li Xiuhua, head of the nursing department of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital.

However, many hospitals are having nurses do other work besidesnursing, like accounting and computing, which makes the shortage of nurses even worse in clinical service, said Huang.

Li also noted that the education system should provide more effective and qualified education to nurse students and strengthentraining and re-education.

Both Huang and Li stressed importance of formulating nurse law,saying hopefully the law will come out by the end of this year.

The International Nurse Day, May 12 every year, was set by the International Council of Nurses to mark the birthday of Florence Nightingale, a military nurse from the United Kingdom, who was thepioneer of modern nursing.

The Ninth International Red Cross Conference in 1912 established the Nightingale Award, the top honor in international nursing. Thirty-eight Chinese nurses have been recognized with theaward so far. Enditem