Admission of persons with disabilities into nursing and midwifery courses: Progress made by the Indian Nursing Council.

ABSTRACT

India's Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 (PWD Act, 1995) mandated a minimum enrollment reservation of 3% for persons with disability (PwDs) across all educational courses supported by government funding. Following this, the Indian Nursing Council (INC) issued regulations limiting such an enrollment quota to PwDs with lower limb locomotor disability ranging between 40%-50%. The Medical Council of India (MCI) also restricted admissions under the PwD category to PwDs with a lower limb locomotor disability to comply with the Act. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016, which replaced the PwD Act, 1995, raised the minimum reservation to 5% for all government-funded institutions of higher education and extended this reservation to PwDs under 21 different clinical conditions, rather than the seven conditions included under the PwD Act, 1995. Following the enactment of the RPwD Act, 2016, the MCI issued regulations that allowed PwDs with locomotor disability and those with a few other types of disabilities in the range of 40%-80%, to pursue graduate and postgraduate medical courses, while the INC has not made any changes. This article addresses the complexities of inclusion of PwDs in the healthcare workforce, offers suggestions for inclusive measures; and compares the INC admission regulation released in 2019 to the MCI 2019 admission guidelines for graduate and postgraduate medical courses.