Hyderabad, November 20: To strengthen primary health care and increase availability and quality of nursing services, the Centre will open 250 auxiliary nursing midwife and general nursing midwife schools in the country, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said today.
Inaugurating the ninth Asia-Pacific International Midwives Conference here, the minister also said several measures were being taken to strengthen the State Nursing Councils and State Nursing Cells.
Faculty development programmes would be taken up to address the shortage of faculty in nursing schools and colleges, he said, and stated that to recognise the hard work of nurses and midwives, national awards for nursing would be revived.
Midwives were the backbone of any health care system and it was a challenge for developing countries to provide care and facilities where women could deliver babies with dignity, Azad said. Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region were grappling with problems of high maternal mortality, he noted.
The Government of India was committed to providing accessible, affordable and accountable health care to the people, the minister said.
The National Rural Health Mission was the flagship programme of the government, and would look to improving delivery of health care services.
The programme had helped add 7 lakh community health workers, 70,000 nurses and auxiliary nurse midwives and over 15,000 MBBS doctors to the health system, he said, and the effort had resulted in decrease in maternal mortality to 254 per thousand from 301 per thousand.
Countries like Sri Lanka had shown how nursing and midwifery skills alone could bring major reduction in maternal mortality, and India was learning from the experience, Azad said.
He lauded the contribution of midwives who worked in remote areas and provided ante and post natal care in difficult circumstances.
Azad said the country had a low nurse to population ratio. As of now, 9.3 lakh nurses and midwives were registered with various State Nursing Councils. However, 40 per cent of these were not active and there was a need to reactivate them, the minister stated.
Representative at ICM for Asia- Pacific Region Karen Guilliand also spoke of the vital role of the midwife.
--Agencies
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