The campaign was launched by a Saudi woman last week on social networking site Facebook and has attracted the support of men and women.

“Mixing of men and women in hospitals and other places leads to much corruption and vices such as exchanging looks, breaking the barriers between men and women and the creation of unethical relationships, which is forbidden in Islam” said a statement published on the Facebook page on Thursday.

It claimed that mixing men and women would adversely affect the performance of doctors and nurses in hospitals.

The campaign, carrying the title “Pure Hospitals,” called for establishing separate health facilities for women, in which only women doctors, nurses, technicians and administrators could work.

“This will preserve the dignity of women patients and provide work opportunities for Saudi women who are qualified in various fields of medicine,” the campaign page said.

The campaign claims that many medical men and women were waiting patiently for a solution to the situation. There was also surprise at the open calls to expand gender mixing.

“Out of our love for this country and our allegiance to its leaders, we call for an immediate halt to gender mixing. We should all work to extinguish the fire, not rekindle it,” one supporter said.

The signatories referred to the current trend in the Western world to end the mixing of boys and girls in schools through increasing calls for single sex education, and said in the US alone there are now 180 private girls’ colleges.

Many hospitals in Britain have begun to separate men and women patients, they added.

They warned that gender mixing in schools and universities would result in a rise in rape and sexual harassment cases.