Maharashtra: Amid high demand for nurses, courses see many vacant seats

Experts says courses other than medical and dental given secondary treatment; highlight the need for nurses amid pandemic.

At a time when the world is depending on healthcare workers and nurses who are being hailed as heroes at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19, nursing institutes in Maharashtra are facing high number of seat vacancy year after year.

In the peak of fight against Covid-19 last year, Maharashtra had requested for nurses to be brought down from Kerala to help in state hospitals. (HT FILE)

At present, admissions are on at the institutional level, and as per figures shared by the state common entrance test (CET) cell, over 64% seats remain unclaimed across nursing institutes in the state. This, experts said, is the status of nursing as well as physiotherapy courses across the state because of the secondary importance given to all courses other than medical and dental courses.

“For the past few years in the state of Maharashtra, admissions to all para medical and other courses including bachelors in Ayurveda, physiotherapy, nursing, etc take place only once admissions to medical and dental courses end. This leaves students, even who were interested, running to book seats in institutes in other states,” said Dr Ramling Mali, member of Indian Nursing Council and former president of Maharashtra Nursing Council.

This year, admissions to most professional courses were delayed by a few months; first due to the lockdown and then due to a petition filed in the Bombay high court for clarity on the status of the Maratha quota. Then in December, the registration process for most professional courses including law, engineering, architecture and pharmacy had to be delayed by a few weeks to give students time to make necessary changes to their admission forms after the state decided to continue admissions without SEBC quota.

Admissions to medical and dental courses had started in November last year and the National Medical Commission (NMC) had extended admissions to January 31, 2021. This deadline was further extended till mid-February for dental courses in order to fill up vacant seats in colleges. “So, admissions to courses other than medical and dental started only post February. Meanwhile, other states had already finished admissions to courses including nursing. We are now left with 64% vacant seats,” said the principal of a Nanded-based nursing institute.

Statistics shared by the state CET cell shows that in nursing courses seat vacancy stood at 56% in 2016-17, 42% in 2017-18 and 30% in 2019-20.

In the peak of fight against Covid-19 last year, Maharashtra had requested for nurses to be brought down from Kerala to help in state hospitals. Experts said the dearth of nurses is a result of years of under-paying nurses in several hospitals in the state.

“Anyone who has spent three-four years, especially with the hope of joining a noble profession, is expecting a decent salary. But several nursing homes in Maharashtra pay not more than ₹8,000- ₹10,000 per month to nurses. Even maids make better money,” added Mali. He said that over the years, more nursing students have been moving to other states or countries with hopes of better pay.

A student has to clear the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) to be eligible for any medical or para-medical courses. For years now, principals of nursing institutes have been demanding that admissions to all medical and para medical courses be conducted at the same time in Maharashtra, just like other states in the country.

“Every year, students used to hold on to seats in nursing courses, and then withdraw the admission if they found even a management quota seat in medical or dental institutes. This led to bifurcating of the admissions process. However, pushing non-medical admissions until after admissions to all medical and dental seats are over has not helped our institutes either,” said Ramesh Pawar, management member of a nursing institute in Pune.