The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : YSR for change in nomenclature of nurse

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Monday, Jul 14, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

YSR for change in nomenclature of nurse

Special Correspondent

Chief Minister wants them to be called “doctor’s assistant”

— PHOTO: NAGARA GOPAL

Bundle of joy: A mother is all attention during a seminar on ‘Protection and Empowerment of Girl Child’ on Sunday.

HYDERABAD: Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy on Sunday endorsed a suggestion of former Union Minister Ch. Vidyasagar Rao to change the nomenclature of nurse to doctor’s assistant for attracting more students to the vocation.

He said the proposal would be discussed with the association concerned, while inaugurating a seminar on ‘Protection and Empowerment of Girl Child’ organised by the ‘Smt. Chandramma Memorial Charitable Trust’.

The proposal would be placed before the Nurses’ Association. The Government would try to implement it after discussions.

Special programmes

The Government had taken up special programmes for the protection and empowerment of girls. A sum of Rs.1 lakh was being provided when the girl attained the age of 21 in case she was the only child of parents belonging to poor families and Rs.30,000 each in case there were two girls. Besides, scholarship of Rs.1,200 a year was being given to each girl student from ninth to XII standards, the Chief Minister stated.

Mr. Rao said educated persons in urban areas were indulging in the ‘obnoxious’ practice of foeticide and urged Dr. Reddy to set up a high-level body to check this. He lamented that students from the State were not joining nursing courses and about 80 per cent of those studying in AP were from Kerala.

Fisheries Commissioner Arvind Kumar, who made a presentation on ‘Restoring gender balance at birth -- a case study of Hyderabad’, said the sex ratio had declined to below 800 girls for every 1,000 boys in 14 districts in the country during 1991-2001.

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