“Doctors are the brain of the hospital and Nurses are the heart of the hospital” quote is oftenly used but in our society the nurses (now Nursing officers) does not get this status.

Being a B.Sc. Nursing student, I want to put light on the academic system of nursing in J&K. From 2020 selection for B.Sc. Nursing course is done by JKBOPEE through UT LEVEL COMMON ENTRANCE TEST, and the students get colleges as per rank and interest. Like me all other students first think that we have got college through entrance, so there will be no issues, everything will go smoothly, but it does not work that way, “Bhai ye Jammu & Kashmir hain” here you have to struggle for everything:
B.Sc. Nursing is a vast course of 4 years, each year includes theory, laboratory work and hospital training. Coming to the theory part, J&K Health department has failed to provide staff as per Indian Nursing Council Guidelines, which affects the theory part. 2nd is laboratorial work, like theory part laboratory infrastructure is also poor. in my 2 years of this academic journey, I have never performed any microbiological test, procedures on manikin (dummy) or any other lab work yet as per INC curriculum, same is the case of other colleges. 3rd is hospital training, which is good to some extent but due to inadequate performance in theory and laboratorial work it also gets affected. Nursing student here directly tries injection on a live patient instead of manikin (dummy).
Another struggle through which Govt. nursing student of J&K goes is the lack of hostel, which compels a student to live in a rented room or PG, which is not only expensive but also interferes with health and academic performance of the student.
Coming to the university scenario, (especially Kashmir University and Jammu University), there are huge delays in examinations and results which leads to completion of 4 year degree in 5 years, Recently when students under Kashmir university raised voices the Kashmir University issued advance datasheets and is trying to come in track with uniform academic calendar. But Jammu University is again lagging behind, which completed 1st semester of 2022 batch (admitted in December 2022 ) in 9 months instead of 6 months.

Future Challenges

Out of 12 Govt. Nursing colleges (including Govt. Nursing College Srinagar and Govt nursing college Jammu) no one is in the list of approved nursing colleges issued By INC. So students studying in these nursing colleges are worried about their future that whether they will be able to get job outside UT or not. The main reason behind non approval of nursing colleges is lack of infrastructure.
National Nursing Officer Recruitment Common eligibility Test NORCET, is a national level test for requirement of Nursing Staff for central Govt. institutes (Including AIIMS), but it has a gender discrimination type of reservation i.e 80:20 (80% seats are reserved for female candidates and 20% for male candidates). There is no gender type reservation for admission then why you apply this reservation for job?. The recruitment should be done on the basis of knowledge not gender. And still if you justify it by women empowerment then apply 50:50 which means 50% seats for each gender wherein opposite gender can’t interfere.
Coming to academics, if you want to do M.Sc. Nursing after B.Sc. you have to gain one year experience post to your B.Sc. But why? What is the need of this? Already in B.Sc. nursing students get a good exposure of hospital work especially during 6 months of internship then why again?. As for as my opinion is concerned this should be eliminated.
Another point I want to mention is that, Ministry of Health and family welfare MoFHW, in year 2016 changed nomenclature, from nurses to Nursing officers and from sister tutor to Nursing tutor. But as usual there is no sign of its implementation in J&K.

Advise to New Aspirants

For the students who want to join B.Sc. Nursing, I want to tell them that if you are really interested in nursing for primary purpose i.e service to mankind then come and you will rock, but if you are coming just because in society you are hearing it has a high job scope then I think it is not meant for you.
At the end I want to appreciate step taken by the Indian Govt. to form the National Nurses and Midwifery commission NNMC, which was recently passed in parliament, by going through its draft, if implemented genuinely, I am sure it will uplift this profession to great heights. I hope this commission will resolve all issues in near future and we will achieve the status of the quote which I used in starting.
Now I conclude this article with a piece of my writing for nursing students:
Your are not just ordinary
Your are extraordinary and visionary
Your are not just learners
You are leaders, Teachers and Future earners
You are the future of Health care and innovation
You are the future Nursing Officers

Email:--------------shayistajamal@gmail.com