By Sarah Hannan
The Ministry of Health is reported to have recruited 3,700 individuals to fill in job vacancies as a result of recently-created job titles in a job-offering frenzy.
Though the casual staff that should be employed under the Ministry of Health and its hospitals stood at 73, with the recent recruitments, there is an excess of 3,627 individuals recruited on casual, temporary, or contract basis. Meanwhile, an excess of 2,661 people were recruited to fill 25 posts in hospitals and affiliated medical institutes.
The Sunday Morning learnt that anomalies were observed during the recruitment process as many of these posts were created by the Ministry to recruit unqualified persons to allegedly fulfil a political motive.
“The minimum educational qualifications to obtain a job as a substitute healthcare assistant are a minimum of six passes at GCE O/Ls. We have been informed that some individuals recruited in Northern Province hospitals had only studied up to grade five,” Minor Services Trade Union General Secretary Guruge said.
He further noted that the vacancies were neither gazetted nor published in local newspapers, calling for walk-in interviews which would have resulted in qualified individuals applying for the posts.
If the respective hospital is to absorb them into the permanent workforce, a duly-completed form should be submitted along with proof of educational qualifications to the relevant authorities for approval. When they are unqualified to fulfil these vacancies, then the applications will not be sent through, resulting in an excess of contract-based employees left serving at the hospitals.
According to Guruge, this sort of over-recruitment is now affecting the already-employed staff in the health sector. He said: “Some of our long-serving staff are not given promotions and even the salary increment of Rs. 10,000 announced in 2015 was only disbursed in instalments, with the last instalment due to be received in 2020.”
Retirees called in
Guruge pointed out that the present status within the Ministry was a clear exhibition of abuse of powers and is bound to lead to internal disputes.
He also noted that retirees had been called to fill administrative positions, which would definitely lead to misuse of government resources.
“There are so many unemployed youth who are qualified to fill these vacancies and we firmly believe that political recruitments should stop entirely. On one hand they are recruiting unqualified individuals, which will badly reflect on the quality of service to be provided to the patients, and then they are also bringing in elderly people who are at the ages of retirement, curtailing opportunities in career growth for the long-serving employees.”
The Joint Council of Nursing, PSM, and Paramedics Services, however opposed that claim of resource misuse, as they had requested for retirees to be called back to service due to a deficit of qualified pharmacists serving at state hospitals at present.
“It takes four years to train a pharmacist and at present, we do not have a sufficiently-trained workforce to fill in for the pharmacist positions at many hospitals in the country. Therefore, we requested the Ministry of Health to call back the retirees to service,” member of the Joint Council Ajith Thilakaratne, when contacted by The Sunday Morning, explained.
In a letter addressed to the National Wages and Workforce Commission Chairman on 26 March, the Joint Council had brought to attention the issues pertaining to employee promotions, salaries and incentives, and service-level improvements.
An islandwide strike was launched on 8 April by members of the Joint Council and they are yet to receive any positive feedback from the Government.
“We are launching another strike on 22 and 23 April as we have not received any response from the Ministry,” Thilakaratne added.
All attempts made to contact the Minister of Health for comment failed at the time this article went to print.
The Ministry of Health is reported to have recruited 3,700 individuals to fill in job vacancies as a result of recently-created job titles in a job-offering frenzy.
Though the casual staff that should be employed under the Ministry of Health and its hospitals stood at 73, with the recent recruitments, there is an excess of 3,627 individuals recruited on casual, temporary, or contract basis. Meanwhile, an excess of 2,661 people were recruited to fill 25 posts in hospitals and affiliated medical institutes.
The Sunday Morning learnt that anomalies were observed during the recruitment process as many of these posts were created by the Ministry to recruit unqualified persons to allegedly fulfil a political motive.
“The minimum educational qualifications to obtain a job as a substitute healthcare assistant are a minimum of six passes at GCE O/Ls. We have been informed that some individuals recruited in Northern Province hospitals had only studied up to grade five,” Minor Services Trade Union General Secretary Guruge said.
He further noted that the vacancies were neither gazetted nor published in local newspapers, calling for walk-in interviews which would have resulted in qualified individuals applying for the posts.
If the respective hospital is to absorb them into the permanent workforce, a duly-completed form should be submitted along with proof of educational qualifications to the relevant authorities for approval. When they are unqualified to fulfil these vacancies, then the applications will not be sent through, resulting in an excess of contract-based employees left serving at the hospitals.
According to Guruge, this sort of over-recruitment is now affecting the already-employed staff in the health sector. He said: “Some of our long-serving staff are not given promotions and even the salary increment of Rs. 10,000 announced in 2015 was only disbursed in instalments, with the last instalment due to be received in 2020.”
Retirees called in
Guruge pointed out that the present status within the Ministry was a clear exhibition of abuse of powers and is bound to lead to internal disputes.
He also noted that retirees had been called to fill administrative positions, which would definitely lead to misuse of government resources.
“There are so many unemployed youth who are qualified to fill these vacancies and we firmly believe that political recruitments should stop entirely. On one hand they are recruiting unqualified individuals, which will badly reflect on the quality of service to be provided to the patients, and then they are also bringing in elderly people who are at the ages of retirement, curtailing opportunities in career growth for the long-serving employees.”
The Joint Council of Nursing, PSM, and Paramedics Services, however opposed that claim of resource misuse, as they had requested for retirees to be called back to service due to a deficit of qualified pharmacists serving at state hospitals at present.
“It takes four years to train a pharmacist and at present, we do not have a sufficiently-trained workforce to fill in for the pharmacist positions at many hospitals in the country. Therefore, we requested the Ministry of Health to call back the retirees to service,” member of the Joint Council Ajith Thilakaratne, when contacted by The Sunday Morning, explained.
In a letter addressed to the National Wages and Workforce Commission Chairman on 26 March, the Joint Council had brought to attention the issues pertaining to employee promotions, salaries and incentives, and service-level improvements.
An islandwide strike was launched on 8 April by members of the Joint Council and they are yet to receive any positive feedback from the Government.
“We are launching another strike on 22 and 23 April as we have not received any response from the Ministry,” Thilakaratne added.
All attempts made to contact the Minister of Health for comment failed at the time this article went to print.