The Ministry of Health is awarding appointment letters on Thursday to 515 graduate nurses as Grade III nursing officers, marking the first recruitment drive in five years and ending a hiring freeze that has weighed on hospital staffing.
The last intake for these positions was carried out in 2021, NewsFirst reported. The newly appointed nurses will be deployed across major government hospitals and teaching hospitals islandwide. The Health Ministry confirmed that Sri Lanka currently has 43,553 nursing officers serving in the state healthcare system.
The intake comes against a backdrop of acute frontline staffing pressure at state hospitals through 2025 and the first months of 2026, including repeated industrial action by the GMOA and other health unions over recruitment and conditions. Health professionals’ unions have long argued that the recruitment freeze meant new graduates were being held outside the system while ward vacancies were running unfilled.
Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya in early May convened the inaugural meeting of a 15-member committee on medical education reform, part of a wider government push to bring teaching hospitals, postgraduate training and recruitment pipelines under a more coherent framework.
The Grade III appointment represents the entry rung in the nursing officer career grade scheme and qualifies the appointees for further career-grade promotions over time.
Speaking at the ceremony at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Health and Mass Media Minister Nalinda Jayatissa said the government aims to recruit roughly 15,000 nurses by 2029, with half of that target expected to be achieved before the end of 2026, Newswire reported. The minister said the latest intake brings the government to nearly 30% of its five-year recruitment target, and a further 2,867 nursing appointments are scheduled for October — bringing total recruits under the programme to around 50% of the goal. A separate 3,441 nursing graduates who completed training at nursing schools were recruited last year; combined with Thursday’s batch, 3,956 nurses have joined the public health service over the past year. The ministry expects total appointments over 2025–2026 to reach 6,823, with another 1,949 recruits in 2028 and 2,920 by mid-2029.
The 515 graduates were appointed as Grade III Nursing Officers after completing their BSc Nursing degrees at state universities and a six-month Nursing Orientation and Coordination Training programme conducted at 31 government hospitals.
Update — 31 May: NewsFirst reported on 31 May that Minister Jayatissa reiterated the 2,867 October figure as the next near-term recruitment milestone, confirming the timeline set out at the Thursday ceremony.
Sources: NewsFirst — 515 nursing graduates recruited, Newswire — 15,000 nurses by 2029, NewsFirst — 2,867 by October 2026.
