The current approved cadre of grade medical officers in state sector is approximately 22,600 and nearly 21,200 of those are now filled. However, this cadre is extremely outdated as the state health sector has expanded considerably with addition of new hospitals, new units and new specialties over the past few years. Hence the present cadre has to be updated considering above expansion and accepted cadre norms of the Ministry of Health. This will avoid unemployment of medical graduates in the near future.
If there is an excess of medical graduates over the available vacancies in the state sector in future, priority should be given to state medical graduates for whom the tax payers have spent considerably and recruitment has to be done strictly according to the common merit list.
Hence, we propose to convene a meeting of all stakeholders who are directly responsible for above mentioned matters to discuss in detail and to arrive at practical and country friendly decisions to prevent possible unrest among medical undergraduates and graduates and to allow the free state medical sector, which has contributed immensely to improve nation’s health in the past, to function smoothly without any hinderance.
Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Dr A D K S N Yasawardene - President-AMS
Dr R Gnanasekeram - General Secretary-AMS