Karnataka's nurses write to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, raise objections to Nursing Bill

Nurses from the state have written to Union Health Minister Harshvardhan, raising several objections to the Nursing and Midwifery Commission (NNMC) Bill.

They want exclusion of nursing assistants, midwifery associates and homecare personnel from the Bill as they are not trained nurses.

“There are a huge number of nurses qualified with ANM, GNM and BSc (nursing) courses and candidates with lower skill sets will deteriorate the quality of healthcare. This endangers public safety,” said the Trained Nurses Association (TNA, Karnataka unit), in its letter.

Separate Board sought

A separate Nursing and Midwifery Practice and Rating Board needs to be constituted to regulate the standards of nursing services, the letter said.

All members of the Commissions are nominated, giving importance to those from central government institutions. There is no representation for registered nursing associations, it said.

“The composition is against the democratic set-up and violates equal representation in the decision-making process,” said P Girijamba Devi, secretary of TNA, Karnataka unit.

Advanced education qualifications like PhD nursing, doctoral, post-doctoral and advanced fellowships need to be included in NNMC PG board, for regulations of doctoral programmes, it said.

The autonomous boards mainly focus on nursing education. There is no monitoring agency for the quality of nursing service. Hence, a separate Nursing and Midwifery Practice and Rating Board needs to be created, says TNA.

“A majority of the states don’t have an inspection on the quality of nurses and nursing services. There should be an inspection on an annual basis through the Board which shall submit a report to the Commission for further action. The major areas to inspect are the qualification of the nurses employed, salary and working conditions, in hospitals and nursing homes,” Devi said.