Jharkhand will open its door for men in the nursing sector soon.

Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, who handed over appointment letters to nearly 500 nurses and youths who had passed out of the ITI skill centre and the nursing training centre at Kalyan Gurukul — both run by Prejha Foundation — in Ranchi on Wednesday evening, announced that the state government is working on allowing men to do nursing courses too.

“There is a lot of potential in the nursing sector with big super speciality hospitals coming up in different parts of the state. The government has agreed in principle that now men can also do nursing courses and we are working on completing the procedures in this direction soon,” said Soren.

The nursing sector in Jharkhand has been mostly for women till now barring a few private hospitals where men nurses, who have completed their courses from other states, are allowed to do duty in male wards. So far, none of the government nursing training institutions in the state allows men to take admissions.

Hemant Soren poses for a selfie with women trainees at the skill training centre in Ranchi on Wednesday. Manob Chowdhury

“Our government has a special emphasis on skilling the youth of the state. A skill development college will be opened in Ranchi at a cost of about Rs 300 crore,” said Soren.

The chief minister also announced a medical circuit linking various big cities of the state with the medicine shops being set up at the panchayat level.

“The government has started a scheme for opening medical shops at panchayat levels. A few youths have already benefitted from the scheme in Chatra district earlier this month. We will have similar shops in different districts so that people in remote villages do not face problems with medicines during emergencies.

“We are also planning a medical circuit connecting specialist doctors in big cities of the state who can be contacted for teleconsultation by the medicine shops at the panchayat level,” said Soren.

“We also have plans to connect pathology centres and ambulance services with the medicine shops at the panchayat level so that people do not have to come from villages for pathology tests to the city and block headquarters. Similarly, ambulances can also be arranged at villages from the medicine shop,” added Soren.

Soren also advised the training institutions in the state to prepare a database of the trainees and share it with the government so that the passed-out trainees can be contacted for employment and self-employment opportunities.

“The government has made a law to reserve 75 per cent of the jobs in the private sector in the state with a monthly salary of up to 40,000 for the locals. In such a situation, trained youths will get jobs here too,” said Soren.