The Ministry of Health plans to recruit nearly 2,000 doctors for internship training in August 2026, Deputy Minister of Health Dr. Hansaka Wijemuni told NewsFirst on Tuesday.
The August intake will include both locally trained graduates and Sri Lankan students who completed their medical degrees abroad, the deputy minister said. The expanded round is intended to help alleviate the current shortage of doctors across the state health system.
The recruitment is the largest publicly announced single internship intake in recent years and follows a series of health-sector workforce moves under the NPP government, including the recruitment of 515 nursing graduates as Grade III nursing officers in late May and the longer-running drive to absorb a backlog of medical interns whose appointments had been delayed by the bankruptcy crisis.
The internship year is the final clinical training step before a medical graduate can be appointed as a permanent Grade Medical Officer in the state health service, and entry into the round is the principal gateway for Sri Lankan-origin doctors trained overseas to return into the local workforce. The size of the intake — together with the explicit inclusion of foreign-trained graduates — points to a fast-track approach to closing rural and specialist vacancies that have been highlighted repeatedly by the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) over the past year.
The ministry has not yet published a detailed breakdown of the August intake by training hospital or specialty, or the formal opening date for applications. Dr. Wijemuni said further details will be announced in the coming weeks.
Sources: NewsFirst — Nearly 2,000 doctors to be recruited for internship training.
