In the wake of increasing requirement for trained nurses in the country, the Union Health Ministry has made a proposal of Rs 319 crore to the Planning Commission to boost the nursing education in the country during the XIth Five Plan period. The proposal also includes the setting up of graduate and auxiliary nursing schools in 230 districts during the next five years.

The country has been witnessing an increasing requirement of nurses during the last couple of years. The migration of women in white to foreign countries for better career prospects compounded the problem. Faced with huge shortage of nurses, United States and European nations are also looking to attract large number of qualified women in white from India. It is also likely to create further gap between the supply and demand of nurses in the country.

"A large number of nursing personnel are required under National Rural Health Mission to serve at Primary Health Centres. The Nursing educational Institutions will be strengthened to improve the quality of training and additional nursing educational institutions will be established under NRHM. In the strategic framework for nursing during XIth five-year plan, we have identified 230 districts in the country where there are no auxiliary nurse-midwives (ANM) and graduate nurse-midwives (GNM) institutions," an official from the Health Ministry said.

The Centre is proposing new ANM and GNM schools in these districts during the XIth Plan period. It is also proposed to establish 4 Regional Colleges of Excellence with state-of-the-art facilities to improve the quality of nursing education in the country.

At present, about 9.05 lakh nurses have registered with various state Nursing Councils in India. There are about 1597 nursing schools and about 833 B.Sc (N) colleges and 97 M.Sc (N) colleges are functioning in the country with capacity to train 79850 diploma nurses, 41650 graduate nurses and 1940 post graduate nurses per year respectively.

"However, there is a need for expanding the training facilities and also equally sanctioning the additional nursing posts for adopting optimum nurse patient ratio. Keeping in view the need to review the existing training facilities for nurses, additional resources have been earmarked for their expansion," he said.

The Health Ministry official said that there was no shortage of nurses at present and the patient-nurse ratio varied from 3:1 to 10:1 in the country. According to the Report of the National Commission on Macroeconomic and Health, around 3.25 lakh nurses would be required by 2015. A recent McKinsey report said there will be 2 million additional hospital beds by 2015 and 15 per cent increase in hospital infrastructure is anticipated in the next 10 years.