Zhang Guiying says she will seize the opportunity to bring grass-roots psychiatric staffers' voices to the Congress. [Photo/cnjiwang.com]

With professional dedication and faith, Zhang Guiying, head nurse of the psychiatry department at the Jilin Provincial Neuropsychiatric Hospital, has been caring for her patients for 22 years.

Zhang was born in a remote village and, despite her families' objection, started to work as a nurse in a mental hospital after she graduated from Siping Nursing School.

Not long after she started to work at the hospital, Zhang was attacked by a patient.

"I was so frustrated that I began to cry. Some senior nurses comforted me and told me patients here all have mental problems and our mission is to help them," Zhang recalled.

"I calmed down and later when I saw the patients recovered and leaving the hospital, I always feel comforted and happy."

Many patients have serious mental problems and often attack people and destroy things. Zhang reminds her colleagues, particularly the freshmen, to be careful and enrich both theoretical and practical knowledge.

Zhang said, "Nursing work in a psychiatry department is very special. We need to be patient and dedicated. Every nurse needs to have rich experience to deal with all kinds of accidents that may occur to protect patients."

She has strong responsibility and regards patients as her family, which touches both patients and her colleagues.

Yu Chuan, a nurse at Zhang's hospital said "Zhang checks the patients every day and helps other nurses with professional knowledge of mental disorders."

Zhang was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal in 2009, after which she organized health care service activities to advance care for the mentally ill.

A training base for professional psychiatric nurses, the first in China, was established in 2012 as a result of a proposal by Zhang.

Zhang was selected as one of the Jilin delegates to the 19th CPC National Congress.

She said "I will bring psychiatric staffers' voices to the Congress and report on the condition of mental patients in China to help the public know more about them."