Appointment letters for 350 newly recruited health service assistants were presented in Jaffna on 18 September, filling long-standing vacancies across hospitals and health institutions in the Northern Province.
The ceremony was held at Thiviyamahaal on Kankesanthurai Road under Health and Mass Media Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa and Northern Province Governor Nagalingam Vedanayagam. It was organised by the Northern Province Ministry of Health, Indigenous Medicine, and Probation and Child Care Services.
The intake is split across Sri Lanka’s two tiers of health administration. Fifty of the posts were recruited by the line ministry — 45 assigned to Jaffna Teaching Hospital and five to the Jaffna Nursing College. The remaining 300 were recruited under the Provincial Council and will be assigned to other hospitals and health institutions across the province.
Jayatissa said that, apart from the central government, the Northern Province is the first province to grant health service assistant appointments. Nationally, 1,860 health service assistants have already been appointed to the Western Province and other institutions island-wide under the government’s health human-resources programme.
The intake forms part of a far larger state hiring push. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said the same week that the government intends to recruit 121,000 people to the public service by the end of the year, including 10,000 police officers and 23,000 teachers.
A one-in-ten selection rate
The province produced 4,219 applications for the posts. Of those, 3,595 met the required minimum qualifications, and 350 were selected on highest marks through structured interviews — roughly one in ten of the qualified field. The remaining 624 applicants fell short of the basic entry requirements.
Jayatissa said the appointments were not political and that no one could be accused of having granted political appointments. Vacancies in each district were filled by recruiting from within that same district, the Minister said, and the same method was applied here.
Minister flags a recruitment shortfall
Despite the twelve-to-one ratio of applicants to posts, the Minister said the Northern Province does not receive applications at the level expected, and that the shortfall is most visible in the nursing service. The contrast is profession-specific: assistant-grade posts drew heavy competition, while nursing vacancies in the province continue to attract too few candidates. Recruitment and training across all health professions are being accelerated, the Minister said, and staff would also be directed to other vacancies in Northern Province hospitals.
MPs Dr. S. Sribavanandarasa, Mylvaganam Jegatheeswaran and Dr. Sellathambi Thilakanathan attended, along with the Northern Province Chief Secretary and the Provincial Director of Health Services.
The appointments came a day before Jayatissa laid the foundation stone for a Rs. 212 million nursing quarters complex at Point Pedro Base Hospital, part of a run of northern health engagements by the Minister during the week.
Not yet reported
No outlet has stated what the 350 appointments cost in annual salaries, how many health service assistant vacancies remain unfilled in the province, or when the next tranche will be released. The size of the nursing shortfall the Minister referred to has not been quantified, and no timetable has been given for filling it.
