KUHS Says No Private Hospitals for opening Nursing Colleges

Kochi: Unwilling to compromise with the higher standards of nursing education, the Kerala University of Health Sciences has refused to allow the 100 to 150 bedded private hospitals in the State to start nursing courses.

The private hospitals had requested to the University for its permission in this regard as the State is facing a huge demand of nurses when several of them are migrating abroad.

However, refusing to the request, the University has opined that "the move will affect the quality of education."

While Indian Nursing Council (INC) mandates that a nursing college should have a 100 bedded parent hospital, in case of Kerala, KUHS insists on having a 300 bedded parent hospital for this purpose.

Currently, Kerala has a total number of 8005 nursing seats in 130 nursing colleges. In case of general nursing and midwifery courses, the intake capacity is 4044 in 130 nursing schools. On the other hand, annually around 9000-plus nurses migrate to Gulf countries alone for work purpose.

Therefore, referring to the shortage of nurses in the States, Kerala Private Hospitals Association (KPHA) had pointed out that many nurses from the State are migrating abroad and the freshers are also not willing to join the State hospitals.

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"Nurses shortage is an acute emergency faced by the private hospitals in Kerala now. The same situation is bound to reflect in the government healthcare sector very soon," the letter said.

"The stringent rules and regulations followed by KUHS have also contributed to this issue. The stipulation of a 300 bedded parent hospital, in comparison to the INC norms of 150 beds, stringent norms on occupancy, staff and infrastructure etc are all creating an unfavourable situation in Kerala. In states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu nursing institutions with even 50 bedded hospitals or even without parent hospitals but only affiliated hospitals are permitted to run nursing courses," it added.

As per the latest media report by the Times of India, KUHS, however, has said no to the request of the private hospitals. In its reply to the KPHA, the University said that it has the liberty of fixing higher standards while taking the uniqueness of its jurisdiction into consideration.

The registrar of KUHS said to KPHA that the University has set a higher minimum standards requirement. As per the KUHS conditions, in order to start nursing courses, there should be a functional hospital with a minimum of one year of existence with 300-bed strength with all facilities. Further, the bed occupancy of the parent hospital should also be a 1:3 student-patient ratio.

Further, the University pointed out that blindly following the minimum standards set by INC would result in getting nursing graduates without adequate exposure. The University further added that KUHS always priorities the quality of education due to which nursing graduates holding the KUHS degree are preferred from India internationally among those from other states and they get better packages as well.

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