Workshop on quality nursing education organized

Shimla, November 5, 2015: A workshop on “Building a Vision for quality nursing education in Himachal Pradesh” was organised by H.P.Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission here at HIPA.

Shri Vineet Chawdhry, Additional Chief Secretary (Health) in his opening address emphasised the need to address issues relating to improvement in the quality of nursing education. He said due to changing profile of population, demand for nurses and health care professionals in the state was on the increase and for this nursing education system need to be geared up to take up the challenges.

Smt. Sarojini Ganju Thakur, Chairperson, HPPERC detailed about the rationale of the workshop and flagged issues relating to admission process, deficiency of faculty in private nursing institutions and employability. She emphasised that private Nursing Colleges need to pay more attention towards improving communication skills and computer proficiency of students nurses besides clinical exposure to enhance employment prospects.

Dr. Anil Chauhan, Principal, Tanda Medical College, Sh. Sunil Sharma, Member, HPPERC, Dr. S S Kaushal, Principal, IGMC Shimla, Dr. Jai Shree Sharma, Director, Medical Education & Research, Dr. D S Gurung, Director Health Services and Dr. Pankaj Lalit, Registrar HP University, Shimla also expressed their views on the occasion.

As many as 51 participants from 26 Nursing Colleges from the State participated in the workshop. Representatives of Nursing Colleges also expressed their view that the admission process for GNM course should be streamlined.

It was decided that the issues related to clinical exposure of the students would be sorted out by the private colleges with IGMC & Tanda Medical Colleges and the issues relating to affiliation, examination, and constitution of separate department for Nursing would be examined to by the HP University. Similarly, given the increased workload, the need for strengthening of HP State Nursing Council was acknowledged.