The Cabinet on Friday approved the guidelines for establishing nursing institute, to address the shortage of nurses in the country. The draft guidelines were jointly submitted by the Bhutan Medical and Health Council and the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources.
Currently, there are over 600 nurses in the country, with a ratio of 1 nurse for every 12 patients. And as per the Health Ministry, the National Referral Hospital in the capital alone requires at least 500 additional nurses to meet the growing demand. To address this, the Accelerating Bhutan’s Socio-Economic Development Initiative recommended the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources and the Ministry of Health to jointly facilitate and promote private nursing institute in the country.
“The main reason for government instructing MoLHR and MoH to promote establishment of private nursing is to supplement the nursing training program in Royal Institute of Health Sciences because their capacity is like 50 nurses annually. So you can say only few nurses graduate from there. The Health Ministry tells us that they have a shortage of 500-1,000 nurses,” said Pema Wangda, Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Human Resources The Bhutan Medical and Health Council, who will facilitate the registration process, will also supervise the quality and standard the institutes should fulfill.
“We want to ensure the quality of those institutes which will be coming by looking at the physical qualities, facilities, curriculum and other requirements of the institute required under the Council Guideline. So when this institute, they produce nurses, they are competent,” said Dr. Pandup Tshering, Registrar, Bhutan Medical and Health Council.
As an interim measure, 300 nurses will be trained over three and half years. One hundred have already been sent to India last year and another 100 will be sent this year depending on budget availability.
Meanwhile, the Labour and Human Resources Ministry plans to send out invitation of proposal to interested promoters, entities and joint ventures, who will be willing to establish nursing institutes in the country.
