Plans afoot to train 400 nurses

According to the proposal,for every 10 beds of the district hospital,the training centre will admit one nurse. As a result,for over 4,000 beds in the district hospitals,400 new nurses will be trained at the centres across the state. “Because of the acute shortage of nurses in the state,we are mooting this proposal. It is,however,yet to take a final shape,” said Prabhat Sarangi,Secretary,Medical and Health and Project Director,UPHSDP.

The general nursing course will be for a period of three-and- a-half years,and admission will be through an entrance examination,which will be conducted by the Health department. “We are also proposing to open two or three nursing colleges for BSc (nursing) in the state,” said Sarangi.

Till now,the general nursing is taught in nine government medical colleges in the state. The BSc (nursing) is still not taught in the state.

“Kanpur Medical College had some seats of BSc (nursing),but the course is not being run as of now. All over Uttar Pradesh,no other government college offers BSc or MSc (nursing). In its place,we have three-and-a-half-year course of general nursing and two-year course of Post Basic B Sc (nursing),” said Ruth Daniel,the chief of State Nurses Association,UP. “We have requested the government time and again to introduce the BSc (nursing) course,” Daniel added.

While only those students who studied science at Intermediate level can take up BSc (nursing) course,the state government has allowed students from Arts too to get admission in general nursing course. “By doing general nursing,no one can pursue MSc (nursing) without the two-year course of Post Basic B Sc (nursing). Also,for M Sc (nursing),science is necessary at intermediate level in other states,” she added.

At present,453 nurses complete the general nursing course from the state every year,while the total number of beds in government hospitals is around 30,000. Out of 4,948 permanent posts of nurses in government hospitals,240 posts are still lying vacant. Recently,the state government sanctioned another 268 redeployed posts taking the total number of nurse posts to 5,216.

The Department of Health is also planning to create one post of nursing for every one post of the doctor in the state,so as to bring the ratio of nurse and doctor to 1:1. With the total sanctioned posts of doctors in the state being 13,791,the government needs to create around 8,500 more posts of nurse.