'Eliminate discrimination against nurses’
As the nurses are an integral part of the healthcare team, they must be provided with better facilities in order to improve healthcare service, speakers at a discussion said yesterday.
They also called for eliminating discrimination against them.
World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Directorate of Nursing (DNS) organised the discussion at the Engineers Institute of Bangladesh (IEB) auditorium to mark the International Nurses Day 2008.
The speakers said nurses are very much neglected and it is a must to provide them with better education to develop their skills.
The shortage of specialised paediatric, psychiatric, oncology, orthopaedic and trauma nurses has become an acute problem as the country lacks the system to produce specialised nurses, they said, adding that currently the nurse to people ratio in the country is 1 to 6342.
Highlighting the present scenario of nursing service, the speakers said that internationally it is recognised that nurse to patient ratio should be 1:4, whereas it is seen that the ratio becomes 1 to 50 or 70 in the evening and night shift due to the shortage of nurses, which creates an obstacle to better healthcare service.
Calling for recruitment of more nurses, they said more posts for nursing supervisers should also be created as there are only 833 posts of nursing supervisers to supervise 15,000 nurses.
The nursing society also urged the government to amend the 30-year-old nurse recruitment policy and set up a Nursing Commission in this regard.
"The existing salary discrimination should be removed for the development of this sector and at the same time posts for Community Nursing should be created," said Deputy Director of the Directorate of Nursing Services Renuka Bala Roy.
WHO Country Representative Duangvedi Sungkhobol said some 2,000 new nurses have been coming out of the institutions every year. But it is insignificant compared to that of the rush of the patients to the hospitals.
Additional Secretary of the health ministry Md Abul Kalam Azad attended the discussion as the chief guest and Director of the Directorate of Nursing Services Shamsun Nahar was also present.
Some 62 nurses were awarded gold medal for their outstanding performance this year.
Every year the world observes the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the pioneer of modern nursing, as the International Nurses Day.
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