KOZHIKODE: The survey released by the Directorate of Economics and Statistics has revealed the grave status of home nurses in the State, professionals who are greatly in demand especially in urban areas. The survey has revealed that nearly 75 percent of home nurses currently working in houses and palliative care centers are untrained professionals handling medical cases.
As per the survey, there are 593 Home Nursing institutions functioning in the State and nearly 25,000 people are part of such centres. Significantly, a majority of home nurses being released from these institutions for various tasks like patient, delivery, child and old age care, are untrained without any prior experience in the sector.
Additional director of the survey PV Babu said, “It was in the wake of increasing number of complaints from clients who approach agencies supplying home nurses, the need for such a survey on home nurses in the State became necessary,”. In addition to these findings, the survey also states that a good number of these professionals are migrants.
It can also be seen that 69 percent of the units are functioning in urban areas (43 percent in Municipalities and 26 percent in Corporations) and 31 percent in rural areas (Panchayaths). Also, a majority had no legal documents or records to prove their authenticity, he further elaborated.
In October 2015, a total of 2,508 employees were assigned work and during the period November 2014 to October 2015, a total of 25,208 employees were assigned work. “But people always fail to check the qualification or experience of home nurses before assigning them the task to take care of their family members,” said Kozhikode Palliative Care Unit coordinator Ahamed Jaleel.
This led to several problems especially medical, when it came to taking caring of old people or accident cases, he further added. Only 24 percent of Home Nursing Institutions impart training to employees, according to the survey. In Malappuram district, 47 percent of the firms are imparting training to employees.
