AIIMS doctors write to Director over nurses being assigned to computer facility

Several departments of All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) here are facing a shortage of nursing staff as around 100 nurses have been assigned to the computer facility of the hospital for last three years, claimed the Resident Doctors' Association (RDA) on Friday.

In a letter to the AIIMS Director, the RDA termed it a 'gross misuse' of resources stating these nursing officers who draw a salary of around Rs 70,000 are doing a job for which one gets paid Rs 12,000-15,000 maximum.

Moreover, the Nursing information services (NIS) are not supposed to be handled by nurses.

"It is quite strange that nursing officers who are not even specialised for computer operations have been deployed in the computer facility just to work as coordinators between users and engineers, a work which could have been done by data entry operators or computer operators," said AIIMS RDA president Dr. Vijay Gurjar in the letter.

The RDA further sought a review of this decision citing the paucity of nursing officers in various departments including in the emergency. "There is an acute shortage of nursing staff at Emergency Block, we have requested the administration about the shortage of approx 50 nursing staff required in emergency only," RDA president added.

Ironically, the controversy comes on the occasion of International Nurses Day on Friday which marks the contributions nurses make to society.

Dr Deepak Agrawal, Chairman of Computerisation at AIIMS, said only 80 nurses out of 6,000 have been trained to act as an interface between health care workers and the IT team.

"They have been primarily responsible for the success of the computerisation at AIIMS. This has been acknowledged by the ministry of health which has been pushing hospitals to create a similar cadre in their respective hospitals," he said.

He further stated that these nurses who work as nursing informatics specialists provide training to the doctors and nurses on the various modules on computerisation in various departments and supervise to ensure successful implementation of the same.

"They do not work as data entry operators nor do they enter any data into the systems themselves," Dr. Agrawal added.