KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 1,681 nurses from private nursing colleges will be recruited at the end of the year to serve in government hospitals, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.

He said prior to this the government only hired one per cent of nurses from private colleges for every 3,000 accepted.

He said recruitment had increased to meet the rising demand for nurses from government hospitals and high number of applications from private colleges.

Liow said that according to Human Resources Ministry records, the number of applications went up to 5,000 from 2,500 last year.

"Each year we will recruit this number until 2015 when we will have 6,726 nurses from private colleges," he told reporters after opening an international conference on Disaster Nursing in conjunction with the 17th Malaysia-Singapore Nursing Conference on Saturday.

He said to ensure the nurses met requirements, they had to sit for and pass the Malaysian Nurses Board examination.

To date, the ministry has 66,000 nurses working in government hospitals nationwide.

Liow said 473 nurses had been trained in disaster nursing preparedness while another 438 nurses were trained in emergency and trauma nursing programmes last year.

He said these training programmes had also been extended to private institutions.

"Emergency physicians in the main hospitals throughout Malaysia have started to develop nurse training programmes in the area of disaster preparedness, formulation of disaster plans for hospitals and organising disaster drills to ensure proper patient care and management in disaster settings," he said.

Liow said nurses had to be prepared to deal with all hazards as they played a major role in responding to such events. - Bernama

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