Massive intake to health sector planned in 2007

Motive to provide excellent health service to public:

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

COLOMBO: Health Care and Nutrition Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva has decided to fill all vacancies in the health sector by the end of next year and end human resource shortages to provide better free health service, a ministry spokesman said.

He said the Minister has made arrangements to name next year as `Human resources development year' to achieve this target. Earlier Health Care and Nutrition Ministry planned to recruit 15,000 nurses in 2005 to 2007 but only recruited 7,000 nursers by the end of this year.

According to the statistics, 8,000 more nursers are needed to meet the human resources requirement in the health sector, especially in hospitals.

The Ministry faces difficulty when recruiting nurses because most students who do the Advanced Level Examination in the science stream, do not want to work as nurses and seek employment in laboratories and pharmaceutical industry with higher salaries and better facilities, he added.

The spokesman explained that recruiting nurses from Advanced Level students of art stream carried out during the past years is not unusual or new.

All nurses recruited from the arts stream will be given training on science subjects before commencing formal training as nurses.

The Ministry has decided to consider students who had done Advanced Level Examination in the Arts stream, to be recruited as nurses despite certain section in the health sector opposing this.