Patna, Aug. 29: State health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey inaugurated the first of its kind nursing skill laboratory at Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife (ANM) Training Centre on the Guru Govind Singh Hospital campus in Patna City today.

The laboratory, which has been set up by Unicef in collaboration with the state health department, aims to ensure better nursing services across the state.

Sources in the health department said the objective of the lab would be to improve the basic and advanced skills in providing maternal and childcare. The skills lab will address the weaknesses in the skills of each trainee based on individual assessment of their skill levels. All the healthcare providers like doctors, nurses and ANMs would undergo the training courses at the centre.

Choubey said the inauguration was a “proud moment for the state”. “Unlike the previous capacity building exercises which were modular, the recent exercise such as integrated management of neonatal and childhood illness, skilled birth attendant, emergency obstetric and newborn care and facility-based neonatal care are important aspects of nursing these days. These skills are critical for saving the lives of the mother as well as the baby during childbirth and the immediate neonatal period and beyond,” he said.

“These skills need to be practiced again and again till the care providers become confident of practicing them during their discharge of duty. There is an urgent need to assess the skills learnt to correct errors in skill application as this would improve the quality of care provided during the moment of crisis,” he pointed out.

A senior health department official said: “The skill laboratory will improve the quality of skills being practiced and would also accelerate the reduction in the rates of maternal and neonatal mortality and help in achieving millennium development goals 4 and 5. The lab has been set with a view to fill the gaps in the skill-based learning, to rectify errors that are likely to creep in during the course of service provision. These labs also aim at improving the confidence level of the care providers to utilise the equipment for life saving procedures and to provide standard mother and child health care.”