Once a staff nurse, always a staff nurse in Karnataka's NIMHANS

Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/2017/may/12/once-a-staff-nurse-always-a-staff-nurse-in-karnatakas-nimhans-1603925.html

BENGALURU: “The sleeping position of comatose patients in the ICU needs to be changed every two or three hours and talcum powder needs to be applied on their backs so that they don’t develop bedsores,” said Neelavathy A M, ward supervisor at NIMHANS. She has been working here for 31 years.

Staff nurses and ward supervisors say
the cadre system at NIMHANS has been
detrimental to their career
growth | nagaraja gadekal

There are two wards in NIMHANS - psychiatry and neurology. While the neurology ward has trauma cases with spinal and head injuries, the psychiatric ward has patients with mental disorders. “A nurse tending to a patient in the psychiatric ward should have eyes even behind their head to guard against assault from aggressive patients,” said Shankarling I R. He’s been a staff nurse for nine years.

In a nutshell, the commitment that is wanted of a nurse in NIMHANS is different from one in a general hospital.

NIMHANS is the only government hospital of its size in India that is dedicated to neurology and psychiatry, making a nurse’s job a challenging one. Yet, it has a cadre structure that is detrimental to a nurse’s career growth. A 20-year-old graduate in BSc nursing who joins as a staff nurse may retire as a staff nurse at 65, even if she has a PhD degree.

Unlike All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi; PGIMER, Chandigarh; JIPMER, Puducherry or Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, (which are autonomous institutes of national importance) there are only three levels in NIMHANS - staff nurse, ward supervisor, nursing tutor.