LAHORE: Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Secretary Najam Ahmad Shah says a final go-ahead has been given for restructuring of the nursing cadre, empowering of the director general and setting up of the Punjab Nursing Council.

Addressing a meeting on Wednesday, he said steps were being taken for uplifting and restructuring of the nursing sector under the 18th Amendment to provide capacity-building and opportunities of higher education for young nurses to meeting the doctor-nurse ratio in public sector hospitals of the province.

Mr Shah said the Directorate General Nursing was also being strengthened, adding that steps would also help in creating environment conducive to nurses at workplaces.

He said the DG Nursing would be fully empowered to take decisions on its own under the new scheme.

He said the education of nursing profession would be elevated to the international standard for which necessary improvement in the syllabus would be introduced.

He said ample opportunities for higher education in BSc nursing, MSc, M.Phil and PhD nursing would also be created for young nurses to bring the nursing sector to the international standard.

Mr Shah said the capacity-building, improvement of efficiency and betterment of services would be ensured by empowering the nurses.

He said the support would be sought from experts of the developed countries for this purpose, but the system would be run through the local nursing cadre after capacity-building and restructuring of the sector.

The health secretary directed that a whitepaper and a roadmap regarding the short-term and long-term strategy for restructuring and uplifting of the nursing sector should be prepared within a week besides making way forward in the light of legal and financial requirements.

He reiterated that the government would provide required financial resources for this purpose.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2016