Post Registered Nursing exam: Nurses of Nishtar Nursing College protest administration’s apathy

MULTAN: Over forty-nine nurses Saturday protested at Nishtar Nursing College after failing to take their Post Registered Nursing (PRN) exam allegedly owing to administrative apathy of the institution in scheduling the time table for the exam.

Talking to reporters, the protesting nurses said the administration of the institution remained careless about the schedule of the exam, which was scheduled on September 25 under the aegis of University of Health Services but Nishtar Nursing College students failed to appear due to lack of completion of their admission process. The nurses said they would spoil their one year of study due to lack of completion of their registration process by the administration.

They said Post Registered Nursing is a new course that allowed admission of nurses who have completed a four-year diploma in nursing and now they are enrolled in BSC nursing 2-years program.

They said the University of Health Sciences takes the Post Registered Nursing exam but the administration did not make efforts to affiliate the classes with Nishtar Health University. The Nishtar Health University can take exams but the administration did not take up the matter seriously and scheduled their registration with the university, they said.

This is the first batch, which has lost their six precious months to appear in the exam timely. The batch has already been facing delay due to coronavirus pandemic. The Nishtar Health University had enrolled two other batches including one generic and the other is MBBS are also feared to fail in appearing in the exam.

The protesters said the government is declaring medical colleges into universities without assessing their capability putting the future of many doctors and nurses at stake. When contacted, Nishtar Nursing College principal Shenaz Qayyum rejected the impression that the administration was responsible for the delay in the Post Registered Nursing exam. She said the entire administration was quite efficient and performing according to their assigned work. She said the administration is very keen about the academic career of nursing exams. She said the office work had suffered due to coronavirus pandemic and continuous lockdown, when offices were closed and colleges had been signed off for Covid-19. She said the administration is making efforts to ensure holding of the exam in a minimum time period and soon the exams for Post Registered nurses would be rescheduled.

She said the Post Registered course is a newly introduced curriculum for that reason it faced problems for the first time holding the exam. She said when a new curriculum is introduced it faces some obstacles for the first time. She assured the schedule for the new exam would be declared soon. All the things would move accordingly, she added.

Anti-dengue week from 28th: The anti-dengue week will be observed from September 28 to October 3 across the district under the directions of Deputy Commissioner (DC) Agha Zaheer Abbas Sherazi.

The health and other departments concerned were assigned tasks in this regard. The DC will inaugurate anti-dengue week at district Jinnah library while Assistant Commissioners (ACs) will lead the awareness walks at tehsil levels. The cleanliness activities will be made at government offices on second day of the drive across the district, pamphlets to be disbursed among citizens. The DC directed heads of all departments to actively participate in the anti-dengue week.