Bangalore: At a time when the World Health Organisation (WHO) has decided to focus on the health workforce crisis and the problems faced by it this year, the situation is no different closer home.

Not only is there a severe shortage of paramedical staff in the public health sector here, nurses in government hospitals are over-burdened and stressed as a result.

The theme for World Health Day (April 7) 2006 is "Working together for health" and it focuses on health workers.

As per global norms, the nurse-patient ratio should be 1:5 but in the Victoria Hospital here, which gets the largest number of patients in the city, this ratio is grossly violated. At a given time, one nurse is posted in each ward, looking after 30 patients. Moreover, in the burns ward, where patients need constant care, there is only one nurse to look after 60 patients, while in the emergency wards, there is one nurse for 20 patients.

According to WHO, the health workforce in all countries is in crisis. The results are evident: clinics with no health workers and hospitals that cannot recruit or keep key staff.

Chronic shortage

"There is a chronic global shortage of health workers, as a result of decades of under-investment in their education, training, salaries, working environment and management. This has led to lack of key skills, rising levels of career switching and early retirement as well as national and international migration," says Tim Evans of the U.N.

"Most nurses are overworked and stressed out because they are working long hours and the pay is not much. If a nurse looking after one ward is absent, the nurse in-charge of the next ward has to run around doing the work of two wards. There are no basic facilities for nurses such as nurse station or toilet facilities as the hospital has only one toilet for all staff members. Moreover, the nurses are sent for session duty (when legislature sessions are on) and for MBBS examination duty," said a senior medical officer at the hospital.

According to official estimates, there are 409 vacancies of nurses in schools while there are 43 vacancies to be filled by nursing tutors in government nursing college and nursing schools. "The Government has not recruited a single nurse in eight years despite the shortage. We have asked the Government to provide basic facilities to nurses and to have a separate nursing university," Karnataka Government Nurses' Association president Kamala Hugar said.

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