Karnataka - Bangalore   

Shot in the arm for country’s AIDS care

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

ToWARDS better treatment: T. Dileep Kumar (left), chairman of the Indian Nursing Council, and K. Kasturirangan, space scientist, at a conference in Bangalore on Saturday.

BANGALORE: With a $33 million aid from the Geneva-based Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), the Indian Nursing Council (INC) will train one lakh nurses across the country in AIDS care and treatment.

T. Dileep Kumar, Nursing Adviser to the Union Government and chairman of the Indian Nursing Council (INC), said here on Saturday that the GFATM had in principle agreed to release $33 million.

The INC, which would be the principal recipient of the aid, was in the process of signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the GFATM, Mr. Kumar told presspersons here on the sidelines of a national conference on “Theory Application in Nursing Practices,” organised by the M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Nursing Education and Research.

The INC has identified 55 institutions in the country to inter alia train nurses in providing Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) and counselling AIDS patients.

Nearly 15,000 nurses would be trained annually for the next five years.

The INC would provide funds to the 55 institutions for capacity building, Mr. Kumar said.

With the help of the Clinton Foundation, the INC will soon set up the National Institute of Nursing at the Tambaram Sanatorium in Chennai, said to be the biggest AIDS care and treatment centre in the country, to facilitate research in the field of nursing with regard to AIDS patients.

The seed money for establishing the institute would be provided by the Clinton Foundation. Around 25 per cent of the seats would be reserved for students from abroad, who would be selected by the World Health Organisation, Mr. Kumar said.

Under the 11th Plan, a whopping Rs. 2,900 crore had been allocated for the development of the nursing sector. With this, the INC would establish centres for excellence in all the States to improve nursing education and training. The council would spend Rs. 20 crore on each centre, he said.

The centre for excellence would provide postgraduate courses in nursing and conduct continuing education programme (CEP) for nurses.

The roster system would be followed for selecting nurses for the CEP.

The State nursing councils would renew the licences of only those who would participate in the CEP, Mr. Kumar said.

Besides, the INC would set up four regional centres to monitor the functioning of the State centres.

After inaugurating the two-day seminar, space scientist and Rajya Sabha member K. Kasturirangan said that the INC should make use of the EDUSAT satellite facility to train nurses in rural areas.

Dr. Kasturirangan said that of the nine lakh nurses registered with various State nursing councils, only 3.6 lakh were active in the profession.

Around 20 per cent of nurses headed to foreign shores and the rest were not equitably distributed throughout the country, he said.

Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan faced an acute shortage of nurses. According to Union Health Ministry estimates, India would require 10.43 lakh nurses by the end of the 11th Plan in 2012, Dr. Kasturirangan said.

Responding to Dr. Kasturirangan’s suggestion, Mr. Kumar said he would soon approach the Department of Space to discuss the modalities for utilising the EDUSAT facility.

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