Nurturing nurses

"Nurses are equal partners with doctors, especially surgeons. I trust the opinion of the nurse in the operating theater. Her knowledge of technology and her dedication makes for the surgeon’s confidence. It reduces operating time; thereby reducing the anesthesia required and thus reduces morbidity.”

Chief guest Prof (Dr) Arun Jamkar, eminent surgeon and vice chancellor of the Maha­rashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS), was speaking to the first batch of 20 nurses who have graduated from the Bel-Air College of Nursing at the convocation ceremony held at the M. R. A. Auditorium, Panchgani on March 19, 2011. He congratulated the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS), Maharashtra State Branch, "for its vision that Indian society needs more nurses. This is the first instance of an international collaboration in India with the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Nursing and Johnson and Johnson (J&J) Limited in creating a new role model for nursing colleges.”

While UIC has provided course content and training for the four-year BSc course in nursing, J&J has funded at Bel-Air a school for 20 auxiliary nurses and midwives to strengthen healthcare for rural people, training underprivileged girls from the villages of Maharashtra, free of cost. The College has been approved by the MUHS as an examination center and as of May-June 2010 the first, second and third year students have appeared for their university examination in the College itself, as notes the IRCS newsletter (January-June 2010).

Top: Kersi Gherda; above (L to R) Homai Modi, Prof Minu and Dr Mehroo Patel; below: Graduate nurses with Fr Tomy and Sr Martha

Addressing Prof (Dr) Mi Ja Kim, executive director of the Global Health Leadership Office of the UIC who represented her institution at the convocation as a guest of honor, to extend the training facility at Bel-Air with a high technology MSc course to help the girls be better qualified to face the challenges of tomorrow, Jamkar promised that the MUHS would help the lower and lower middle class candidates by paying all the interest on their loan scholarships with the sole condition that they pass at their first attempt. "There will be no reservation and no other regulation.”

He also voiced the concern of other nursing colleges that seats go unused because of the perception that hospitals do not remunerate their nurses adequately and requested the IRCS to spearhead a movement to ensure proper salaries. The first batch to graduate from the Bel-Air College are being absorbed equally by Panchgani’s Bel-Air Hospital and Bombay’s Breach Candy Hospital which has participated in their internship. Addressing the graduates he noted, "Most of you will go abroad… and prosper. Achieve brilliance, but remember the noble small flame of knowledge and training you received here. This institution has given you values, principles. You will be perfect nurses when you use your knowledge with compassion.”

"The task set before us is not beyond us,” responded Aleena Joseph on behalf of her fellow graduates, quoting Winston Churchill. Comparing themselves to pots taking shape on the potter’s wheel, Joseph spoke of the "warmth and love from people far away from home… but the bed of roses also held thorns… We learned sharing and cooperation by living in dorms.” Proud to be among the first batch to graduate, she appreciated the minute supervision and guidance of the Principal, Sr Martha T and the support of Fr Tomy, director of Bel-Air Hospital who, she said, "created a beautiful mindset” for them.

1: Lighting the lamp; 2: Dignitaries on the dais; 3: the audience; 4: Dr Mi Ja Kim; 5: Dr Arun Jamkar; 6: Breach Candy Hospital’s Sheroo Amaria; 7: CEO Maj Gen (Retd) Vijay Krishna; 8: Sr Martha, Ajit Palekar and Fr Tomy

Referring to nurses as "compassionate knowledge workers,” Kim spoke of the comprehensiveness of nursing which includes aspects of several disciplines including physics, chemistry, medicine, psychiatry, pharmacology, etc. In the US trained nurses have "prescription privileges, can open their own clinics. Therefore the future is bright with limitless opportunities,” she noted, adding that she would await requests for PhD enrolment from the new graduates in the foreseeable future.

The function had begun more than an hour late as the chief guest had been help up due to unforeseen circumstances. Terse at the best of times, IRCS chairman Kersi Gherda made the briefest of welcome speeches, noting he would not stand in the way of the proceedings!

It was Dr Mehroo Patel of Chicago — who had worked with the late surgeon Dr Bomi Billimoria at the Bel-Air Hospital and Sanatorium when it was the only available facility for TB patients in a society afraid of the dread, often fatal disease — and her statistician husband Prof Minu Patel who had provided the link with the UIC, recalled IRCS honorary secretary Homai Modi in her introductory remarks. Noting that this convocation was a "dream come true,” Modi told the graduates, "You are one of my many miracles. We have inculcated in you the Red Cross ideals and principles and today we celebrate with you the spirit of humanity and the power of Red Cross values.”

Patel had read of the rebirth of the institution run by the Red Cross as a general hospital, dedicated to the treatment of HIV-AIDS — the first in the region — when the President of India Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam had graced the 90th anniversary of the Bel-Air Hospital in 2003. "What began as a 12 –bed TB sanatorium (in 1912) is keeping abreast with new methods and technologies. Did Dr Rustomji Billimoria (the founder of the institution), did his son Dr Bomi (one of the earliest thoracic surgeons to operate on TB patients), did Sir Dorabji Tata (who gifted the 44-acre estate on which the Bel-Air complex developed) visualize this?” wondered an amazed Mehroo Patel. The Patels set up an advisory committee for the new building of the nursing college and the Bel-Air Benefit Foundation (BABF) in the US which donated trophies for the convocation apart from a host of professional texts and journals to the college library. "Funds, expertise, books, computers, you say it and it is provided,” added Modi.

But Patel had another "stimulus package” up her sleeve to celebrate the convocation: "The first batch to register for the MSc course will get their fees paid by the BABF.” She also promised a roundtrip airfare to Chicago for two who proceed for their PhD. "Keep a diary; continue to be learners, researchers,” she counseled. "In the education hierarchy there are no acronyms after PhD; but keep up to date with knowledge and skills, whether you go in for general nursing or the medical specialties.”

The Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) University at Karad is another partner in the hands-on training of the students of the Bel-Air College of Nursing. Its registrar, Col Ajit Palekar referred to it as a "mutually beneficial relationship… The training and exposure will help you go very far, make a name for Bel-Air… You are like the Indian cricket team — well integrated; integrated with KIMS, with Red Cross, with Breach Candy, with UIC. One hardly comes across a new institution that has done all of that in the short stint of four years.” Noting that the integration of medical universities is a cherished vision for Jamkar, he added, "Integration, collaboration are buzz words today. (What you have done is) a benchmark for all institutions to achieve.”

Sr Martha, one of the group of Sisters of JMJ (Jesus Mary Joseph) who have partnered the institution, reported on its events and work and "the human, moral, cultural and scientific aspects needed by nurses today.” The third year students who go for internship to hospitals in Poona and Wye and the nearby villages had cleared their annual university exam with distinction, she informed the gathering.

Far left: A dance item by student nurses and the solemn convocation procession

In his vote of thanks that followed the distribution of degrees and trophies and a short entertainment program put up by other students of the College, Fr Tomy of the Missionary Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament which has partnered the IRCS in the revival and running of the Bel-Air Hospital, was particularly appreciative of the direction for post graduate courses that had been enunciated by Jamkar that morning. He was also thankful for the "army discipline” at KIMS that has rubbed off on the girls. The presence of Kim who had come all the way from Chicago to enthuse the young graduates and the discussions with her have "finalized our decision to go ahead, because the original agreement was due to end in 2012,” he noted. Speaking of the Red Cross connection, Gherda and especially Modi who he described as "the soft iron lady,” Tomy referred to her principles and her firmness. "I do not have enough words to describe all she has done for us… She is the most important person for Bel-Air,” he noted, adding a cryptic aside to "the experiences we have been through to bring this institution to this level!”

Noting that they were setting up benchmarks for salaries in the nursing profession in conjunction with the Breach Candy Hospital, Tomy noted, "They have never done this kind of block recruitment before. Sister Sheroo Amaria, nursing superintendent at Breach Candy said ‘We want the values…’ the value of compassion we are bringing in.” Complimenting the "pioneer, founding principal Sr Martha, the JMJ Congregation, the great, dedicated faculty” and the St Xavier’s School on the Bel-Air premises which has provided food and quarters for the student nurses, he added, "The graduates understand what we’ve been through, how obsessed we’ve been with quality, discipline, determination.”

The event ended with a lunch at the Bel-Air campus where Palekar acquainted Parsiana with the immediate need for a one-year postgraduate course to enable the Bel-Air graduates to be conversant with dialysis, ICU (intensive care unit) nursing and other technical innovations in the profession. Doctors feel it is beneath their dignity to be saddled with ICU management, he noted, and spoke of the hospitals’ dilemma when nurses are not adequately qualified. "If only we can have technically trained nurses!” he wished. Jamkar, Kim, Bel-Air and Palekar all seemed to be registered on the same page…