If all goes as planned, one of the largest hospitals here in the Capital under the control of the Directorate-General of Health Services, Safdarjung Hospital, will be offering a degree programme for nursing beginning this academic year.
A senior health official said, “Safdarjung Hospital will soon be offering a four-year Bachelor of Science (Honours) nursing course for students. A total of 100 seats will be available to students who will be selected through a written test. The institute has been running a diploma course in nursing which would be scrapped as and when the degree course is introduced. The three-year diploma course had an annual intake of only under 40 students.”Confirming that Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University had got a proposal seeking affiliation for the degree course in nursing, its Vice-Chancellor K. K. Aggarwal said: “We have received an application for affiliation for a four-year degree in nursing and it is under active consideration. We should be able to give a response in a couple of weeks.”
Stating that the latest move would enable the college to offer quality education to its students, a senior official said: “The course has been brought in understanding that a degree course is much better than a diploma which we are currently offering. There is a huge demand for trained nursing personnel in this country and courses like these will certainly go a long way in ensuring that the gap between the demand and supply does not widen. We have the infrastructure and staff to be able to sustain a course of such standard. Also adequate hostel facility is also available for our students. The main requirement for running the course is the need for space and infrastructure which is available with us”.
