The Ministry of Health is awaiting approval from the Cabinet of Ministers to extend the retirement age of medical specialists from 60 to 63 years in order to prevent the health sector from going into another serious crisis, The Daily Morning learns.
The Ministry is yet to make a final decision once they receive the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers regarding the matter. This, despite the ministry of health having recently acknowledged before the Court of Appeal (CoA) that not doing so would lead to a crisis.
The walking back of an earlier government decision on limiting the retirement age of public officials including those in the health service, comes in the wake of an increasing shortage in specialised medical practitioners in the island.
In October last year, the cabinet of ministers approved a proposal to reduce the serving age limit of medical specialists from 63 years to 60 despite strong criticism from many medical trade unions and practitioners about the impact it would have on the healthcare system. A group of specialists filed a petition at the Supreme Court challenging the decision in November 2022.
When queried by The Daily Morning yesterday (9), the Ministry of Health’s Secretary Janaka Sri Chandragupta said that even though they have submitted a cabinet paper seeking the approval to extend the age of retirement, the cabinet is yet to make a decision in this regard. Therefore, the recruitment of retired specialists, in order to prevent the exodus in the number of specialists, will be delayed.
The Ministry’s Secretary also said that many parties have misunderstood that the Ministry is trying to recruit the doctors who had retired before the controversial circular issued by the Ministry of Public Administration, Local Government and Provincial Council as a remedy for the prevailing shortage in specialists. He said that such a decision has not been made, but the Ministry is trying only to extend the retirement age by paving the way to recruit the specialists who had retired immediately after the said circular.
The Government earlier stated that the retirement age of more than 60 years for certain special categories of public servants including specialist doctors, will remain unchanged even after the introduction of the new retirement policy. A circular was later issued on 14 September 2022 specifying that the retirement age of all public servants will be 60 years, irrespective of the specifications defined previously.
Following the said decision, 176 specialist doctors had filed a case in the CoA, seeking a writ order with regard to the Government's decision. The petitioners are medical specialists representing multiple fields of medicine including cardiology, cardio-thoracic surgery, histopathology, anaesthesia, paediatrics and otorhinolaryngology, oncology, neurology, obstetrics and gynaecology, haematology and ophthalmology. The CoA, considering the explanations, then issued an interim order suspending the inclusion of doctors and specialist doctors in the relevant Gazette notification which made the retirement age of public servants 60 years.