Nurse nursing back to India's health

Nurses are the backbone of any healthcare system. India’s perennial shortage of nurses contributes to the poor quality of care. In 2020, India reported 24.5 nurses and midwives for every 10,000 persons. Meeting the WHO norm of 34.5 nurses will require India to recruit 1.37 million nurses and midwives. Thus, GoI’s decision to set up 157 new nursing schools with almost 100 seats each is a welcome start. The numbers gap is important, but it isn’t the only cause for the demand-supply gap. Creating the right kind of opportunities, recognising and remunerating trained personnel, and improving reskilling must also be addressed.

India is yet to fully understand the changing nature of nursing. Which is why it continues to be among the biggest exporters of nurses, even while facing acute shortages at home. In 2020, some 61,000 Indian nurses were working in just four countries – the US, Britain, Canada and Australia. The Kerala government reports a sharp rise in demand from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. Globally, nurses serve as the first level of medical practitioners patients encounter. Recognising and enabling nurses to serve as practitioners can help improve outcomes, especially in underserved or unserved swathes of the country.

Setting up more nursing schools is important. But to encourage nursing as a career option, the focus must be on creating the ecosystem that will throw up opportunities for nurses in line with their training. Providing a boost in the value of the profession – both in recognising their fundamental role as healthcare practitioners, as well as providing remuneration that can one day match those in ‘greener pastures’ – will go a long way in fixing the nursing shortage.