The Maharashtra Nursing Council (MNC) has mandated the smart cards for registered nurses in Maharashtra to scroll down the illegal nursing services in the state.

The smart cards will contain the details of a nurse, including qualification, registration number and place of employment. The cards document all information from the time nurses enroll for training. Previously, nurses were provided with an A4 certificate.

MNC has taken the initiative to curb the illegal nursing services in small and private hospitals which is common all over the country, usually housekeeping staff double up as nurses, informed Dr Ramling Mali, president of MNC.

He further says, “As per Bombay Nursing Act 1949 the hospitals issue certificate to nurses and now without the smart card the certificate will not be issued to them.”

Recently the Council has started CNE (Continuing Nursing Education) programmes for nurses similar to CME (Continuing Medical Education) programmes for doctors. Through CME's doctors gather credit points by attending learning sessions to enhance their understanding about the latest advances in their area of practice. By attending CNE's nurses too will gather credit points and these points will be reflect in their smart card provided by MNC.

All the nurses renewal both existing as well as new ongoing registration certificates are issued on a smart card having microprocessor chip, the existing and new ongoing registration certificates are mandatorily converted to the smart cards in addition of the existing paper based registration certificate.

The MNC has a total of five regions and head office located in Mumbai. The data are collected from the MNC office, personalization, printing and issuance of smart cards are only done from the MNC office.