ARTICLE | Nursing Education In India
India needs robust nursing education to build healthy cities
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lorence Nightingale, well known as “The lady with a lamp”, was the founder of Modern Nursing. She was born in England in the 19th century and died at the beginning of the 20th century. Despite lacking infrastructure and unhygienic practice in hospitals, she established a system for patient care. Her perseverance towards excellent patient care laid down the profession in a respectable and high-status style of health care. In 1871, the first nursing school was started in Government General Hospital, Madras, with four students with a six-month diploma midwives program. While Nursing Council Act came into existence in 1948 to constitute a council of nurses who would safeguard the quality of nursing education in the country. There are seven levels of nursing education in India today. ♦♦ Auxiliary Nursing and Midwifery (ANM) or Multi-Purpose Health Worker- Female (MPHW-F) ♦♦ General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) ♦♦ Basic Bachelor of Nursing (B.Sc. Nursing) ♦♦ Post Basic Bachelor of Nursing (P.B.B.Sc. Nursing) ♦♦ Masters in Nursing (M.Sc. Nursing) ♦♦ Masters of Philosophy in Nursing (M.Phil) ♦♦ Doctorate in Philosophy in Nursing (PhD) Nursing education emphasises restoring and maintaining health and preventing disease and helps develop a deep pride in the nursing profession among students to enable further professional growth. A nurse plays an essential role in
40 July 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in
hospitals as well as society. Where a doctor is the brain of the hospital and a nurse is the heart of the hospital. Nurses advocate for health promotion, educate patients and the public on preventing illness and injury, providing care, assisting in the cure, participating in rehabilitation, and providing support. No other health care professional has such a broad and far-reaching role. Nurses help families learn to become healthy by helping them understand the range of emotional, physical, mental and cultural experiences they encounter during health and illness. Nurses are considered as the saviour not only for patients but also for their families. Families are made comfortable to share their grief and pain encountered by illness. In addition, nurses provide emotional support and mental care for a speedy recovery. Nurses do more than care for individuals. They have always been at the forefront of change in health care and public health. Nurses played a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic. They continued to be at the front line of patient care in hospitals and actively involved with evaluation and monitoring in the community. Nurses ensured that all patients acquire personalised, highquality services irrespective of their infectious condition. They also engaged in planning for anticipated COVID-19– related outbreaks, which increase the demand for nursing and healthcare services. However, COVID-19 has affected the life and health of more than one million people across the world. This overwhelms many countries’ healthcare systems and, of course, affects healthcare providers such as nurses fighting on the frontlines
to safeguard the lives of everyone concerned. Exploring the issues that nurses had face during their battle will help support them and develop protocols and plans to improve their preparedness. An integrative review by S Karger suggested that the major issues faced by nurses in this situation were the critical shortage of nurses, beds, and medical supplies, including personal protective equipment and, psychological changes and fears of infection among nursing staff. Our country faces an acute shortage of nursing staff with an estimated deficit of about twenty lakh. The deficit in the public sector alone is considered to be 1,40,000 staff nurses. The Nursepopulation ratio and Nurse-doctor ratio is also abysmally low in India compared to developed countries of Europe and other western countries. Thus, to develop trained nurses, there are two main routes in our country. The majority of nurses undergo a three-year diploma training in Schools of Nursing to become General Nurse Midwife. A minority undertake a four-year training in a College of Nursing (affiliated to a University) to obtain a B.Sc degree from a Registered Nursing College recognised by Indian Nursing Council and State Nursing Councils. Apart from this, many universities are also offering courses other than these, ie., M.Sc in Nursing, PhD and M.Phill in Nursing. While staff nurses are recruited from the GNM cadre in most public sector healthcare facilities, the B.Sc graduates work for a short duration in such sectors to gain experience. They are primarily interested in migrating to developed countries to get attractive salaries and perks and responsible positions. Thus, they have a bright career therein. This shows that the higher academic
