New Delhi, December 14, 2008 : .In the context of ongoing pandemics and fears of an even greater global outbreak, the ‘Think Change Forum (TCF), which is a think tank that seeks to find solutions and answers to critical problems in the post-Covid era, on Tuesday hosted a discussion among midwifery and nursing experts across India to discuss the issues facing the sector.
Participants included representatives of nursing institutions, nursing professionals, and international non-governmental organizations.
Think Change Forum released a ‘5 Point Recommendations’ for strengthening India’s Nurses & Midwives immediately after the discussions.
They include:
The urgent adaptation of WHO norms, as outlined by the Strategic Direction of Nursing & Midwifery 2021-2025 (SDNM 2025), recently passed at World Health Assembly 2021.It focuses on nursing education and creation of leadership positions.
Assist in filling the positions at state and central levels of nursing leadership and to create additional positions in nursing at various directorates across India.
The Government of India has fast tracked the passing of the National Nursing & Midwifery Commission Bill.
This bill will also repeal the 1947 India Nursing Council Act.
Replace the Nurses Registration & Tracking System with a live register
Due to the limited number of institutions that offer courses, there has been an increase in investments in nursing and midwifery education.
India’s over 3,000,000 registered nurses and midwives are responsible for its 1.3 billion inhabitants.This is a grossly insufficient number.India must add more nurses to reach the WHO standards of 4.3 million by 2024.This ratio is below the WHO’s norm of three nurses for every 1000 people.India’s Government and Indian Nursing Council (INC), have not implemented the optimal Nurse-Patient ratio.This means that one nurse can care for 20-30 patients at a time, which puts patient safety in danger.
It also makes it difficult for doctors to do their job and negatively impacts the reputation of India’s healthcare system.
The roles and challenges that nursing professionals face have increased over time.
This has made it a significant obstacle to their development and growth.India has a leadership crisis in its nursing ranks that must be resolved immediately.
The non-nursing professions, lacking practical and daily experience, are unable to make decisions for practicing nurses.
The panel discussion underscored the need for an urgent review of current organisational and management structures for nursing positions at the Nursing Directorates in India and strengthen nursing management capacities.
A special Nurses Human Resources Management System, a technology-based platform for maintaining live nurse and midwives’ register, a need-based assessment of the number of nursing institutions as per the population of the state are some of the other recommendations which need urgent attention of the policy makers.
Speaking during the discussion, Dr T.Dileep Kumar, President, Indian Nursing Council, highlighted the nursing leadership and impact of policy by nurses and said, “There is an urgent need to fill in the nursing cadre and positions to achieve an inclusive structure and adequate representation of nurses in policy making.Currently there are either few or no fully functional directorates across Centre or sates.While much progress has been made to recognize, strengthen and support nurses and midwives, much remains to be done to ensure their growth.”
Prof (Dr) Roy K.George, National President, The Nursing Association of India (TNAI) speaking on the growing attrition of nurses from India said, “India is a global supplier of nurses despite their shortage within the country.The nursing and midwifery profession is witnessing a large-scale brain drain from the country due to poor salary, working conditions and absence of a proper career pathway, and out-dated systems of professional governance.
Despite forming a large part of the healthcare force, nurses and midwives continue to be short-staffed across the nation leading to poor nurse-patient ratio, increased workload, long working hours, double shifts which eventually leads to poor quality of treatment.If this trend continues, India’s healthcare infrastructure will be crippled and most of hospitals in the country will have to close down in the next five years because of their acute shortage”.
Dr Bulbul Sood, Senior Strategic Advisor, Jhpiego highlighted, “Nurses and midwives play a vital role in providing health services and often they are the first and only point of care in their communities.Therefore, it becomes imperative that we enable them with the right support and build awareness, recognition and representation for the nursing and midwifery cadre in our country.
The #NurseMidwife4Change program of INC will help prioritise investments to further strengthen this cadre so that they are able to perform their roles optimally”.
Prof(Dr) Smriti Mani, OSD Nursing Directorate, West Bengal said, “West Bengal currently is the only state in India today where there are about 19 Nursing Officers dedicatedly looking after administration of nursing education, practice, career path and working conditions.
As a result, the workforce has increased from 3,000 nurses in 1957 to 66,983 in 2021.We strongly advocate creation of separate nursing directorates led by nursing leaders across India”.
Panel Moderator, Ratan Jalan, Managing Director Medium Healthcare Consulting and Former CEO of Apollo Health & Lifestyle, elaborated, “Being at the forefront, nurses played a pivotal role in providing care during the pandemic.Unfortunately, the challenges about them – be it the inadequate supply, poor compensation or lack of recognition got even more evident.
My idea for this webinar was to address some of the challenges and reflect on the solutions”.
Dr Saleena Shah – Principal Govt College of Nursing Thrivananthapuram (Ex Registrar, Nurses & Midwives Council, Kerala) emphasized, “We need to emphasize the need of investment into the nursing infrastructure and the integration of equal weightage for education as for other medical professions.”
Prof Reena Menon – Principal St John’s College of Nursing, said: “Nursing students have to be taught by faculty who have clinical expertise, for which Integration of service & Education is the key.We also need to be able to impart clinical & leadership skills and help the cadre become assertive and smart.”
Prof Dr S.Ani Grace Kalaimathi – Registrar, Nurses and Midwives Council, Tamil Nadu said, “We need to bring out the leaders who are already there and highlight to the youngsters what has been done so far so as they are motivated”.
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