What Are The Minimum Hours Of Clinical Training Which Student Nurses Should Undertake? Supreme Court Asks Indian Nursing Council

The bench of Justices KM Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy sought the response while considering a SLP assailing Kerala High Court's order dated December 22, 2020 ("impugned order").

In the impugned order, the High Court was considering a writ appeal against order of Single Judge wherein the judge had held KVM College of Nursing was not entitled to get provisional affiliation from the Kerala University of Health Sciences to conduct Nursing Colleges and Nursing Schools for the academic year 2020-2021.

The affiliation was denied based on the inspection and re-inspection which was conducted that pointed out towards various deficiencies including deficiency in bed occupancy as well as insufficiency in the inpatient strength in the parent hospital.

The bench of Chief Justice S Manikumar and Shaji P Shaly while dismissing the writ appeals had observed that the college was attempting to justify its action of permitting excess students against the provisional affiliation granted by the University.

"On re-assimilation of the relevant materials on record, we can only arrive at a conclusion that the learned single Judge was right in holding that no interference is required to the action taken by the University to reject the continuation of provisional affiliation for the academic year in question," High Court had observed in its order.

During the course of hearing before the Supreme Court, the bench also considered the submissions made Advocate P Sree Kumar for Kerala University wherein the counsel had pointed out that if the nursing students of each batch were to undertake their clinical training in the affiliated hospital in order to get the required 420 hours of training, a student would have to undergo at least 14 hours of training on each day, which may be a practical impossibility due to the distance of the affiliated hospita from the Nursing Institute.

It was also pointed out that some affiliated hospitals also catered to the nursing students, from other institutes.

Pursuant to petitioner's submissions, the bench also asked KVM College of Nursing to file affidavit indicating the number of hours of clinical training in the parent hospital and also in the affiliated hospital, provided for the students of the petitioner-institute.

The matter was posted on March 29.

Story to be updated when the order passed on March 29 is uploaded.

Case Title: KVM College of Nursing v The State of Kerala & Ors| SLP (Civil) 1689

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