Shortages of nurses in public hospitals lamented

Pakistan Nursing Council Registrar Fauzia Mushtaq has demanded that the lack of nurses should be met to improve service delivery in public sector hospitals.

Talking to The Express Tribune, she said that the nurses played a pivotal role during the coronavirus pandemic and their services cannot be ignored.

She said that the number of nurses in public sector hospitals across the country is not more than 100,000, which is alarming.

“There are 339 registered institutes offering nursing degrees across the country in which more than 17 thousand nurses are enrolled. So far, 12 scholars have completed PhD in nursing while 16 more scholars are doing PhD in different universities across the country,” Fauzia said.

She said that there is an urgent need to meet the shortage of nurses in hospitals to overcome the deficiency in the medical sector.

She said that the Higher Education Commission has given conditional approval for a degree programme in master of science in nursing and degree programmes have been launched in Nishtar Medical College, King Edward Medical University, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences and the National University of Medical Sciences.

She said that since 2018, a diploma in nursing has been converted into a degree programme after which 8771 diploma nurses have been shifted to degree programme.

She went on to say that at the moment, there are 97636 diploma nurses across the country while 5257 nurses have completed the degree programme.

Fauzia said that previously, institutes were offering two-year diploma in nursing assistants but now, three-year general nursing diploma and two-year midwifery diploma programmes have been started and modern education is being implemented in nursing education so that trained staff were available in the health sector to provide better health care for patients.

She said that 522 nurses have been enrolled for a master's degree in nursing and 414 nurses for a master's degree in public health while a large number of nurses were taking admissions in bachelor of nursing in generics programme.

Fauzia said that after the modern degree programme was introduced, more and more youth were taking interest in the field of nursing and students’ inclination towards the nursing field was on the rise.

She said that awards should be given to nurses in recognition of their services during the coronavirus pandemic.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2022.