Supreme Court questions norms allowing colleges 30 KM away from ICU hospitals

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]A Supreme Court bench this week came across a norm in India's nursing education system. And what it found, it called nothing short of a fraud on the system. A bench of Justice Amanullah and Justice R. Mahadevan was hearing a long pending matter on healthcare standards.

[00:00:13][music] And it was here that it was informed that the Indian Nursing Council permits affiliated hospitals to be located up to 30 km away from nursing colleges.

[00:00:22]>> [music] >> Even though, as you already must know, any nursing curriculum requires frequent ICU visit for hands-on training. Justice Amanullah's response here, "Every day the student would have to travel 40 to 50 km to a hospital. How is this a guideline there?" And that is when he said that it's nothing short of a fraud on the system. Shocking the conscience of the court. The bench was clear that nursing colleges should ideally be attached to hospitals with ICU facilities.

[00:00:45]>> [music] >> And if not, the hospital should be within 1 km. It directed the Indian Nursing Council to file a report covering around 800 such colleges and specify [music] the distance from ICU-equipped hospitals. Alongside these findings, the court also issued a series of nationwide directions to strengthen ICU infrastructure. Among them was the step to include a GPS-based hospital mapping system to track ICU availability, tele-ICU and tele-consultation networks, CSR and NGO funding for ICU upgrades, and at [music] least five fully-equipped ambulances with ventilator support in each district. Big ruling in the healthcare sector. And if you want to access the full report on this story, visit live law.in and keep following us here to stay updated with everything that is law.