President calls for specialist training to nurses to serve patients

New Delhi, May 12 (UNI) President A P J Abdul Kalam today called for super-specialist training to nurses so that they could complement doctors and serve needy patients by combining knowledge with care and compassion.

Presenting National Award to nurses in recognition of their meritorious services on the occasion of the International Day for Nurses, celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale, the President said in the 21st century, nurses have to become knowledge workers to keep pace with advancements in healthcare technologies.

With rapid advancements in healthcare system and creation of specialties and super-specialities in medicine, there was a need to look at super specialities needed in nursing to compliment the doctors, he said.

'' In a hospital when no doctors, no relatives are around during night time, the nurses provide consolation and relief to the patients. At that time nurses appear to be divine lights to patients in giving treatment and confidence,'' he observed and said good nurses were the product of moral rectitude, maturity and a deep understanding of the character traits needed to care for sick and vulnerable people.

In a recent survey it was found that 95,000 deaths occurred per year in the United States due to medical errors, he pointed out and said there was a need for change in approach in medicare to improve the safety and quality of health care to patients.

In this connection, it was felt that it is important to train doctors, nurses, paramedics, technicians and everyone else connected with medicare to administer better services to patients.

Quality medicare is possible only when people work together as a team, he said.

The President called for Indian hospitals to conduct such reviews periodically in the combined meeting of doctors, nurses and paramedical staff. As in pre operative, operative, post operative and recovery period usage of a large number of sophisticated instruments and monitoring systems, experience of treatment and the problems needed to be shared together and the results documented so that it becomes a teaching wealth for the nursing community and the medical professionals, he said.

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