The government has appointed 2,819 trainee nurses as Grade III nursing officers and promoted 76 Grade I officers to Special Grade, at a ceremony at Temple Trees on Sunday morning held under the patronage of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
The newly appointed officers come from the 2020 student nursing cohort and completed a three-year Higher Diploma course at 16 nursing colleges run by the Ministry of Health and Mass Media, the Daily Mirror reported. They will be posted to hospitals and healthcare institutions run by both central government and the provincial councils.
The 76 officers promoted to Special Grade belong to the Hospital Services category.
The bigger number comes with a condition
Health and Mass Media Minister Dr Nalinda Jayatissa told the ceremony that arrangements had been made to recruit 13,000 people to the nursing service over the three years from 2027 to 2029.
That figure is subject to approval from the Department of Management Services of the Ministry of Finance — a qualification worth keeping attached to it. The plan is announced; the cadre approval is not yet given.
The minister said staffing requirements had been assessed using scientific data under the health policy and strategic plans for 2025–2035, and that steps had been expedited to fill nursing vacancies to address hospital staff shortages and improve the quality of care. He said the ministry had paid particular attention to nursing vacancies since 2017.
Deputy Health Minister Dr Hansaka Wijemuni, Ministry Secretary Dr Anil Jasinghe and several senior officials also attended.
Scale
At 2,819 appointments in one ceremony, this is a substantial single intake into the nursing service. If the 13,000 recruitment proceeds as described, it would run at roughly 4,300 a year — about one and a half times Sunday’s intake, sustained for three years.
Not reported
The filing does not say how many nursing vacancies currently exist in the health service, which is the figure that would show what proportion of the shortfall these appointments close. It does not give a district or hospital breakdown for the postings, state when the 13,000 recruitment was submitted to the Department of Management Services or when a decision is expected, or say what the 2025–2035 assessment concluded the full staffing requirement to be. This report rests on a single source. Ada Derana also covered the minister’s remarks, but the site remains unreachable from this desk.
