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Health Ministry to Hire 170 Nurses for Schools

DUBAI — The Ministry of Health has set an ambitious target to hire 170 nurses within a week’s time to manage influenza A (H1N1) in government schools in Dubai and the Northern Emirates.

On Wednesday alone, the ministry assigned 46 nurses to schools in the Sharjah Education Zone, partially meeting their current requirement for 65 while papers for another 20 are currently being processed. A similar number of recruitments is also made for schools in other emirates.

The ministry also handed over cheques worth Dh100,000 each to Dubai and Sharjah and Dh50,000 for the other emirates to meet any requirements pertaining to management of H1N1. Moreover, the ministry has already provided 1,000 pieces of essential equipment such as masks, gloves, detergent and hand wash to the schools.

School nurses are an important part of the H1N1 management guidelines for schools chalked out by the Ministries of Health and Education to monitor and report cases.

“In some cases we have one nurse managing two schools, which means that one nurse visits each school for two-three days,” said Dr Najla Sajwani, Deputy Director of Primary Healthcare in Sharjah.

“Though secondary school children can report their condition but younger children need more monitoring,” said Dr Najla.

According to the current requirement, 170 nurses are needed to equal the ratio of one nurse for each school. The remaining 152 schools in these emirates already have a nurse or doctor as per the school and health department’s requirement.

“We have started the process of filling in the blanks and I can say that soon all schools will have a nurse each after we start assigning duties to them,” said Dr Mariam Matroushi, Head of School Health Department at the ministry.

The move to hire more nurses came after school health departments submitted their urgent requirements to manage H1N1 before the academic year started in government schools .

Dr Amna Olwan, Head of the School Health Department in the Sharjah Medical District, Ministry of Health, said the nurses are being assisted by at least five teachers to monitor the children until the complete recruitment is made.

Private schools cannot be issued a licence to operate until they have hired a doctor/nurse. “Schools with more than 1,500 students can also have two nurses or doctors,” said Dr Olwan.

Currently, there are 320 schools in Dubai and Northern Emirates, including 216 in Dubai, 54 in Sharjah, 22 in Ajman, 10 in Ras Al Khaimah, eight in Umm Al Quwain, and 12 in Fujairah.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.ae