BY Team Mangalorean
Photographs: Rajesh Shetty

MANGALORE, October 5, 2008: State Minister for Medical Education Ramachandra Gowda has urged the students seeking fulfilling careers in medical and paramedical services to opt for nursing education. 

Mr. Gowda was speaking after inaugurating a nursing college promoted by Kailikere Rukmini Shetty Memorial Trust in the city on Sunday. Mr. Gowda citing from the state medical education department statistics stated that according to the World Health Organisation it was necessary that every 2,000 persons in the country should have atleast five nurses. At present only one nurse was available for that number of people he added. Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh states were producing much more nurses than Karnataka. He said one of the reasons for low output of nurses in the state that the families do not send their children to nursing profession thinking that it was unsafe for their children and harbour the misconception that the nursing profession had many banes.

He said the state had increased the number of seats in nursing courses to 1670 seats in the M.Sc in nursing, the undergraduate seats was increased by 40 seats he added. He said the international norms of all medical profession comprised of 55 per cent of nurses.

Vice Chancellor of RGUHS S. Ramananda Shetty, on this occasion observed that many nursing institutions and colleges were not upto the mark in terms of providing infrastructure as a result the standard of education in nursing was coming down. Dr. Shetty said the state needed more nursing institutes but cannot compromise on the quality of education and infrastructure. He said certain Gurumurthy Committee which was constituted to assess the working of the nursing institutes had suggested closing down 360 nursing institutes in the country.

District Incharge minister J. Krishna Palemar, urged the medical graduates to spend some time during their medical career in the service of the rural people as they lacked basic health facilities. Others who spoke on the occasion included U. T. Khader and Mallika Prasad Bhandary, both MLAs. K. Bhasker Shetty, president of the college, welcomed.