While us girls were washing, feeding, changing beds, of both the men and the women patients, the orderlies were assigned only some of the men, but of course, no women patients, they often sat at the nurses station until they were called to help somewhere else. The workload was over all, less on them. You come on duty and get handed a list of rooms and patients that are your responsibility for your shift, there was no housekeeping back then, the aides did all personal care and bed changes. The two guys were given a list of only a few men that they thought the gals could not handle. So overall, my list would be 5-7 people, both sexes, the orderlies had 3-4.seems it worked out even regarding work, plus the female staff did more grooming for the patients, if they wanted some make up on or their nails done, we also were given the old men who had accidents in their beds, there was one orderly who got away with not dealing with it because the poor thing would gag if he had to clean poop.