KOLKATA: Experienced nurses from government hospitals will now be designated “practitioner nurses” and allowed to perform the duties of junior doctors, in the absence of senior medics or to assist them, chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Thursday after a meeting on health infrastructure with senior officials at SSKM Hospital.
Banerjee also said that “quacks” (medical practitioners) would be used at rural health centres for preliminary treatment, as there were not always enough fully qualified doctors to serve at those centres.
“We are short of doctors, and to bridge the gap we have planned to give promotion to expert nurses as ‘practitioner nurses’. Many nurses are well experienced and work well. Now, they will be able to practice as well, for which the state health department will issue guidelines. These nurses will work with responsibility,” Banerjee said, adding that the number of nurses would also be increased at hospitals. She said the decision to utilise ‘quacks’ was taken because it took time to earn a doctor’s degree. “And there is always a shortage. So, we can have more quacks to fill in for them at the preliminary stage of treatment,” she added.
The CM said a 10-acre plot had been identified for the purpose of constructing a housing complex for doctors, which would be given free. She is scheduled to meet the principals of five government medical colleges in the city on September 16 at SSKM to again review the health infrastructure.
After the onset of the second wave of the pandemic last May, the state government had announced that 2,75,000 quacks across the state would be used as the first line of defence against Covid. They were called ‘Swasthya Suraksha Bandhu’. Banerjee said that steps were being taken to inoculate the parents of children below 12 years old on a priority basis.
The CM discussed the setting up of a cancer hospital on the SSKM campus, to be built with the collaboration of Tata Cancer Hospital. She directed Firhad Hakim, chairman, board of administrators, KMC, to set up a foot overbridge to connect the two campuses. Banerjee also sought link roads at SSKM Hospital to connect different departments within the hospital so that staff could easily move between one to another.
Health secretary N S Nigam was also present at the meeting, which reviewed the health infrastructure before the probable third wave of the pandemic. Ten thousand beds had been kept ready at the paediatric wards, it was announced.
