About 100 new private nursing colleges, which were given assent by Karnataka Government in 2003-2004 notwithstanding the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGHUS) rejecting permission on the grounds of poor infrastructure and unqualified teachers, would now be derecognised in May 2005 when the paramedical admissions will be made through Common Entrance Test (CET) cell.
The colleges managed to seek government approval because of an ambiguity in the RGHUS Act Section 45 (5) that allowed the state government to make the University decision ineffective.
RGHUS' Local Inspection Committee (LICs) had rejected the applications of these colleges to start BSc Nursing Course after a surprise location inspection which showed that the colleges did not have the necessary facilities nor the staff to conduct nursing courses. But the 100 colleges managed to get the government's approval as per Section 45 (5) of the RGHUS Act overriding the university decision, informed sources from the State Government on condition of anonymity.
Although the Indian Nursing Council (INC) guidelines has made it mandatory that nursing colleges had to be attached to a hospital, the committee during inspection confirmed nursing college managements violated the rules.
Over a decade ago, the RGHUS had stipulated the minimum standard requirements for nursing colleges with an intake of 50 students. The rules were formulated as per the revised norms of the INC.
The Nursing College managements had to ensure that to offer a BSc Nursing (basic course) with an annual minimum intake of 25 and a maximum of 50, they had to have a full-time professor with 10 years experience for teaching the first year students. For the second and third year, it was compulsory for the Nursing Institute to have two professors and three associate professors respectively who had experience in medical, surgical nursing, community health nursing and obstetrics and gynaecology nursing.
The other mandatory requirements set forth under the RGHUS guidelines are five full time lectures, 16 assistant lecturers and 13 part time lecturers for English, Kannada, sociology, anatomy, physiology, microbiology, psychology, pharmacology, statistics, nutrition, computer science and yoga.
Those nursing colleges in the state offering Bsc Nursing (post certificate) course along with the basic course, required additional staff requirement of a full time associate professor in any speciality, three full time lecturers and two full time assistant lecturers. For the MSc Nursing course three more full time associate professors had to be appointed.
A college with a basic Bsc and Msc nursing courses, the staff requirement was 14 assistant lecturers, five lecturers, five associate professors and two professors.
RGHUS had also enforced that all nursing colleges had to be attached to a multi-speciality general hospital with at least 200 beds and full- fledged departments. Besides, the colleges had to be affiliated to urban and rural public health centres.