New Delhi: Giving a major boost to training
of nurses to meet the country's needs, the Government has
decided to let married women get admission to nursing courses
as well as increase the retirement age of the faculty in
nursing colleges to 70 years.
At a meeting of the Consultative Committee of Parliament
on Health, it was decided to relax the qualification and
experience of nursing teachers upto 2012.
Some of the other measures are sharing of teaching
faculty for both Diploma and Graduate Programme, establishment
of Centres of Excellence at the state level at a cost of Rs 20
crore per institution and opening of 269 nursing schools in
high focus states.
The age for teaching faculty has been increased upto
70 years and admission in nursing courses has been allowed for
married candidates also, reversing the earlier policy.
Fourteen state nursing councils would be strengthened
at a cost of Rs one crore each.
The measures are being taken in order to increase the
availability of graduate nurses and also keeping in view the
recommendations of the National Health Policy, to train more
graduate nurses under a new sub-scheme.
The nurse to population ratio in India is a dismal 1:1100
while the nurse-doctor ratio is 1:1.5. The nurse-doctor ratio
for most developed countries is 3:1.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, February 18, 2010, 22:42