Students accuse DMER of flouting nurse appointment rules

Nagpur: Students who have passed the BSc nursing degree in September 2015 can compete in the next common entrance test for appointments as staff nurses to various Government Medical Colleges (GMCs) and hospitals. The Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) will conduct the Maharashtra Nursing Health Common Written Test (MNHCWT) in a few months.
The DMER has called the 2014 batch of students who cleared the entrance test as per the merit list on Monday at the DMER office for scrutinizing their documents and for filling 418 posts in ten GMCs and government hospitals.This has created a discontent in students of the latest batch as DMER didn’t hold an exam for them.
“There is a huge shortage of nurses. Ideally, the nurse to patient ratio should be 1:3. But, at present, the ratio in Maharashtra is 1:80 since DMER has not been holding the MNHCWT regularly. The last examination was held in 2014. One batch of students who passed this examination were already appointed last year. As per the GR, the government cannot appoint nurses who have passed the examination more than a year back,” said a student who got the BSc nursing degree in 2015, and is eligible to give the exam this year.
DMER director Dr Pravin Shingare denied the claims of the students. “No entrance test was held in 2014. We are appointing nurses as per the merit list of last year’s examination. To accommodate freshers, another examination will soon be held this year for the 400 vacancies that will be created from July 1. Government had created 3500 nursing posts in 2012. Every year, about 1,000 posts are being filled,” he said.
The DMER held the competitive exam for filling these posts in 2012, 2013 and 2015. Students whose results were declared in June last year are being absorbed now. Dr Shingare thus claimed that there was no violation of the rules. He said that there were already 8,000 students in the waiting list from the earlier exams who will be competing the examination again for the posts along with freshers.
Dr Shingare told TOI that in the debut year of the exam, some students had also filed a case in the court against the DMER claiming that the directorate was earning huge amounts of money from the application fees for the examinations. “In fact I am protecting the interest of the students. I told the court that I have to accommodate the freshers. I also clarified that government allows appointments for only one year for the students who appear for the exam,” he said.
IN A NUTSHELL
· Maharashtra government created 3500 nurses posts in 2012.
· Common entrance test for students passing the B.Sc degree were held in 2012, 2013 and 2015.
· DMER will be filling posts in various GMCs from Monday. These include 79 nurses’ posts for the Trauma Centre at GMCH Nagpur and six posts in PHC at Saoner.