By Maheesha Mudugamuwa A total of 1,800 new doctors’ appointments are currently on hold due to the Ministry of Health's delay in finalising the “difficult stations list”, a concept of the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) to replace the earlier North and East list of the war time, The Sunday Morning learnt. According to the GMOA, the manipulation of the difficult stations list had resulted in the delayed appointments of freshly graduated doctors who had already completed their internship. As explained by the GMOA, the reason behind proposing a difficult stations list for the first appointment of doctors based on their merits, was the fact that most of these doctors had not voluntarily agreed to work in difficult areas as per the usual procedure. Therefore, an incentive-based programme has been created to make sure doctors are stationed in each corner of the country, whether it is a difficult area or not, according to the GMOA. “Mostly, doctors under the usual appointment/transfer mechanism do not voluntarily go to work in remote areas. Therefore, under the difficult (stations) list, the doctors were given different incentives and they are supposed to work only for about a year. Then, they will automatically be entitled for a transfer,” GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Naveen De Zoysa told The Sunday Morning. Alleging that former Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne had attempted to remove the North and East list and operate on a general appointment mechanism, Dr. De Zoysa stressed that several officials were still trying to sabotage the proposed mechanism to introduce difficult stations, which was therefore delaying the finalising of the list. “The difficult stations list has been prepared by the GMOA together with the Ministry of Health officials. However, the list is yet to be approved by the Public Service Commission (PSC). The list was rejected twice because some Health Ministry officials had put some hospitals in Gampaha and Padukka as difficult stations,” Dr. De Zoysa said, pointing out that the GMOA is not responsible for the delay. “The GMOA’s only concern is that there should be doctors in each hospital in the country, and that can only be done by introducing a difficult stations list for the first appointment of doctors,” he noted. When asked why the doctors cannot be appointed under a general system to each hospital, Dr. De Zoysa noted that even if the appointments were made, they would not accept them as they would have to complete four years in such an area to be entitled for a transfer. “They will then go to private hospitals,” he said. “All these 1,800 doctors are currently working in hospitals and they are being paid. The payments made to them are not a waste. The only issue is that they have not yet received their appointment,” Dr. De Zoysa noted. However, when contacted by The Sunday Morning, a senior official of the Ministry of Health who wished to remain anonymous stressed that the delay in finalising the difficult stations list had resulted in a delay in recruiting new doctors. He alleged that the list given by the GMOA had categorised around 75% of the hospitals around the country as difficult stations. “After several negotiations, it has now been reduced to 50%, and further negotiations are currently underway,” he noted.