The Indian Nursing Council gets funding to fight AIDS

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INC gets 33 m Dollar world funding to fight AIDS

Bangalore, UNI:

The Indian Nursing Council (INC) will soon get USD 33 million Global

Fund to impart focussed training to one lakh nurses in the treatment

of HIV/AIDS affected patients in the country.

Mr T Dileep Kumar, President of INC and Nursing Advisor, GOI,

Speaking to reporters after addressing a national conference

on 'Theory and Application in Nursing Practice, has said that the

Geneva based Global Fund to fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis

(GFAMT) had come forward to fund the programme.

Fiftyfive nursing institutions had been identified for the purpose

and one lakh nurses would be given specialised training in treating

people with HIV/AIDS, apart from Malaria and TB.

" Counseling is very important in treating people with AIDS and we

want to create a big contingent of nurses. We want these health

workers to master the treatment of Anti Retroviral Therapy, which is

commonly used to treat HIV patients. We plan to train at least 15,000

nurses every year for the next five years under the programme, " he

said.

INC had begun work on launching the first National Institute of

Nursing at Thambaram in Chennai specialising in treatment of

HIV/AIDS. It would be a self sustaining institute which would reserve

25 per cent of seats to foreign students that would take care of

costs of running the institute.

" South Africa, which has one of the highest incidence of AIDS in the

world, is sending large number of students to the US for training in

treatment of AIDS. We can invite students from foreign countries, " he

said.

Mr Kumar said INC had taken another initiative to set up a Centre of

Excellence in Nursing in each state with a funding of Rs 20 crore for

every centre. Post graduate courses would be launched in each of

these centres besides inviting thousands of staff nurses to undergo

continuous education programmes, he said.

He agreed that many of the private nursing schools lacked proper

infrastructure and the education standard remained sub standard.

" The State Nursing Councils should act as watch dogs and set

stringent norms while according sanction to such schools. The INC is

responsible for prescribing syllabus and norms for setting up

clinical infrastructre facilities. The states should act tough

against the erring schools, " he said.

Former ISRO Chief and Rajya Sabha member K Kasturirangan said states

like UP, Bihar, Orissa MP and Rajasthan faced acute shortage of

nurses. There there were nine lakh registered nurses in various state

nursing councils, only 3.6 lakh of them were actually active.

According to Health ministry estimates at the end of the 11th plan

India would require 10.43 more nurses, a number that current

infrastructure would be unable to meet, he added.

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