Nursing still viewed as lowly work

As I was researching nursing life in other countries I turned up some disturbing facts. Countries such as India and Indonesia still view nurses as nothing more than hand maidens of doctors. Training is not comparable to North American standards (and I'm comparing here because this is where i was trained) and more highly educated nurses are not entirely welcome by upper management of hospitals. Letters to newspaper editors in these countries often state how poor people can not afford health care (in some instances must show up with own chemo drugs for treatment) and are treated coldly by nursing staff.
Here we are in 2007 and depending upon what country you are in women...nurses...are treated poorly, as is the profession overall. The profession has much work to do indeed, to increase government and overall understanding and respect for what we do, who we are.