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Maneesh Bakshi
Doha
Qatar is planning to open a national college of nursing to encourage locals to take up nursing as a career option and build capacity to train specialised nursing professionals in the country, according to Dr Nabila al Meer, Executive Director of Nursing at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC).
"Qatar leads the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in setting up an independent department of Nursing Informatics (NI) with an objective to train nurses in use of clinical information and technological systems leading to improvement in the healthcare system and patient care delivery," Dr Meer told Qatar Tribune on the sidelines of the second GCC Nursing Conference on Sunday.
The two-day conference titled 'Evolution of Technology and its Impact on Humane Nursing Care' was held to discuss the recent technological breakthroughs to impact the nursing profession.
Dr Meer, who is also deputy chief of Continuing Care Group and Ministry of Public Health Nursing Affairs, Chairperson of 2nd GCC Nursing Conference Organising Committee said:"Implementation of Clinical Information System (CIS) at HMC hospitals and Primary Health Care Centres in Qatar is a milestone towards the ultimate goal of having one unified medical record system that will include private hospitals too."
However, Dr Meer pointed out that out of about 17,000 nurses employed in Qatar, a mere two percent are Qatari nationals much below than in some of neighbouring GCC countries. Qatari youth still do not prefer nursing as a career option, she said.
"We are running several campaigns to create awareness about nursing profession. We need to focus more in this direction and try to run campaigns in schools and encourage high school students to take up nursing as a career option," Dr Meer added. œWe are encouraging Qatari nationals by sponsoring them to take up nursing as a profession. We hope that the proposal for the national college of nursing, which is now under discussion, will be cleared by the end of this year. It will encourage local students to take up nursing, ? she said.
The Minister of Public Health HE Dr Hanan Mohammed al Kuwari opened the conference and Dr Wasmiya Dalhem al Kuwari, executive director of Nursing Informatics at HMC, presented the latest technological advancements in nursing that have played a significant role in the improvement of patient care in Qatar
