Bangalore: Karnataka, home to the largest number of nursing colleges in the country, has found itself in the unusual position of an oversupply of the institutions even as the nation faces an acute shortage of healthcare professionals.
At least one institution — New Royal College of Nursing in rural Bangalore — has been shut and a state official says many more closures are planned; up to one-fifth of nursing colleges risk losing affiliation over the next year.
And even as the closures loom and complaints pile up about the quality of education these colleges impart, the state still gave some 150 nursing institutions permission to start graduate, or postgraduate courses in recent months.
About two-thirds of Karnataka’s nursing college seats are taken by students from outside the state, mostly neighbouring Kerala and to a lesser extent Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. South India contributes 80% of the country’s nurses, with Kerala in the lead, followed by Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
India produces about 35,000 nursing degree holders and 55,000 nursing diploma holders every year.
Nursing education boomed in Karnataka when the Congress government in 2002 approved 300 new institutions at one go.
In 2006, following several complaints from students, the Karnataka governor set up a task force to examine the state of paramedical education. The panel was headed by C.M. Gurumurthy, an ear, nose and throat surgeon and the then-special officer at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), which governs all medical institutions in the state.
The task force found many institutions existed only on paper, with fake teachers and students.
It also found 180 nursing colleges and 352 nursing schools to be unsatisfactory and recommended a three-year ban on starting new institutions.
Following the Gurumurthy panel report, the Indian Nursing Council’s (INC) president and vice-president were charged by the Central Bureau of Investigation for approving 23 nursing colleges in southern India. Three of these colleges were in Karnataka, which were approved overlooking several deficiencies.
Growing demand for education and a shortage of skilled workers in an expanding economy has prompted many states, including Karnataka, to sanction private engineering and medical colleges, business schools and even aviation academies.
India has a shortage of two million nurses based on the global average of nurses required proportionate to the population, according to Mumbai-based Wockhardt Hospitals India. The World Health Organization says the global standard is 2.56 nurses for every 1,000 people; India’s average is 0.8.
Still, 84% of government nursing seats in Karnataka, available on merit, have gone vacant in the academic year of 2007-08.
Some nursing colleges operate from two-room premises lacking rudimentary infrastructure, including toilets for students, and with little, or no access to clinical facilities.