A remedy to nursing shortage: IIT alumni, a clutch of NGOs filling this gap

The pandemic has drawn attention to the need for more health workers

It seems fitting that 2020, when the novel coronavirus cut swathes across the world’s population, was also designated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife. Originally done to honour the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale, it has focussed attention on the crucial role that nurses, midwives and community health workers (CHWs) like ASHAs (accredited social health activists) and ANMs (auxiliary nurse midwives) have played in handling the pandemic.

This has been particularly significant in India, where doctors are in short supply (with one servicing 1,404 people against the WHO prescribed ratio