The Covid pandemic has highlighted the human resource limitations in India’s medical infrastructure like never before. Facing an acute shortage of nurses, the government is mulling a revision in the Indian Nursing Council Act 1947.
The draft National Nursing and Midwifery Commission Bill, 2020, is likely to allow registration of foreign nurses with state nursing councils, government sources have told ThePrint. Currently, foreign nurses and nurses with foreign degrees cannot work in India.
According to the sources, the Government of India is also in talks with several countries for mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) for nursing degrees. Efforts are also on to increase foreign employment options for Indian nurses, the sources said. For this, several measures, including teaching of languages like German and Japanese to nursing students, are also under consideration, they said.
India currently has about 1.7 trained nurses per 1,000 people, against the World Health Organization (WHO) norm of 4 nurses per 1,000 people. Poor working conditions and poor pay are the topmost reasons for the annual exodus of nurses from the country, according to the Indian Nursing Council (INC).
At a presentation during a Chintan Shivir last weekend, organised by the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare for its own staffers, Indian Nursing Council president N. Dileep Kumar said “many nurses are demotivated as they don’t get satisfactory salary”.