The
Ministry of Health is direly short on doctors, and a new plan to recruit 1000
more will barely begin to staunch the gap, according to government officials.
As part
of its 100-day priority agenda, the ministry has put out a call for 1000 more
doctors and 700 medical staffers to bolster hospitals around the country,
according to Dr Myat Wanna Soe, deputy director of the medical care department.
He added
that the target will not cover all the vacancies, however.
“The MoH
calls for 1000 new doctors every year, but actually, right now the MoH needs to
fill between 2000 and 3000 vacant posts for doctors,” he said. “But we can pay
for only 1000 additional doctors. So now the MOH is still facing the problem of
a large employee gap.”
Even if
the ministry recruited every one of the new graduates from all five of the
countries medical universities, there would be only around 1500 newly minted
doctors to pull in, according to the ministry’s department of human resources.
As it stands, the ministry is looking to take on two-thirds of the graduating
class in the public sector.
Previously,
graduating medical students typically served the ministry for three years.
Until 2010, MoH appointed and paid the medical licensing fees for those who
agreed to staff the government hospitals. But that stipulation was ended five
years ago.
A
ministry official who asked not to be named told The Myanmar Times that no
appointments of new recruits have been made so far because the Union Services
Service Board had not yet selected new employees.
“The
Ministry of Health is going to apply to the USSB with a list of new employees
but we cannot say when,” the official said.
The
ministry came under fire last year for a perceived militarisaion of public
hospitals, with retired military officials transferred to senior health roles.
The ministry pledged last August that no more military personnel would be appointed
to senior positions.
According
to the World Health Organization, Myanmar has just six doctors for every 10,000
people, with a rural and urban disparity exacerbating the shortage outside of
city centres.
Shwe Yee
Saw Myint
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