Fact Check: Fake notice alert! No decision taken to consider B.Sc Nursing equivalent to MBBS
A notice purportedly issued by the Indian Nursing Council is being circulated on social media. India Today found that it was fabricated.
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India Today Fact Check
The Nursing Council has said that it has not issued any such notice. The Health Ministry too, has called it fake.
Will B.Sc Nursing candidates now be considered equivalent to junior doctors with MBBS degrees? At least that’s what some social media users are claiming.
Many shared a photo of what looked like a notification issued by the Indian Nursing Council. It said that all B.Sc nursing candidates would now be called “Nursing Officers” and the work of nursing candidates would be considered almost equal to that of MBBS candidates. The archived version of one such claim can be seen here.
India Today found that the viral notice was fake. The Indian Nursing Council did not issue any such notice.
Fake notice
We found a Health Ministry tweet which called the viral notice fake and requested people to refrain from sharing it.
We also scanned the official website of the Indian Nursing Council but did not find any such information.
On the contrary, we found a notice from June 8, calling the viral notification “fake and fabricated”. It said the document had “fake signatures” and that such a notification had “never been contemplated nor issued by the Council. All concerned are being advised to ignore the above fake and fabricated notification and desist from circulating or taking notice of the above fake notification in social media circles/ other platforms.” The Indian Nursing Council added that it was contemplating taking steps to identify and punish the persons involved in circulating this fake notification.
We also found that the Press Information Bureau, too, had rubbished the viral notice.
Some nurses can still be called ‘Nursing officers’
The Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued a circular in 2017 that said all staff nurses should be called Nursing Officers and nursing sisters should be called Senior Nursing Officers.
According to a report by Deccan Herald, the Karnataka government had also issued an order renaming nurses as nursing officers. Per the report, this change in nomenclature did not mean a change in grade or salary.
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