දැන් දොස්තර රස්සාවත් අනතුරේදැනටමත් වෛද්යවරුන් පන්දහසකට වැඩි ප්රමාණයක් රැකියා විරහිතව පෝළිමේමඩකලපුව දිස්ත්රික්කයටම නිර්වින්දන විශේෂඥ වෛද්යවරු සිටින්නේ එකයිවෛද්ය උපාධිය අවසන් කළ වෛද්ය සිසුන් කණ්ඩායම් තුනක් තාමත් එළියේඑක් කණ්ඩායමකට සීමාවාසික වෛද්ය පත්වීම් නොමැතිව දැන් වසරකටත…
Now even the job of a doctor is in danger. More than five thousand doctors are already unemployed. There is only one anesthesiologist in the entire Matale district. Three groups of medical students who have completed their medical degrees are still out. One group has not been given internship appointments for more than a year.
Doctors are called gods on earth because there is no other human being on earth who comes to the aid of patients as much as they do in times of illness. That is why, apart from teachers, the next most respected person in society is the doctor. But such a respectable job is now in danger. To be precise, more than five hundred doctors who are due to receive new medical appointments are at great risk of losing their jobs. It is not us who are talking about this, but expert sources in the health sector. Apart from that, many doctors are now in a state of leaving the country. In such a situation, the internships of newly-emerging doctors in the country have also become a problem.
Some hospitals have not conducted an updated audit of the number of doctors in ten years – Government Medical Association Media Spokesperson Dr. Chamil Wijesinghe
Doctors are also losing their jobs
For some time now, the health sector in this country has been hearing about the shortage of doctors, specialists and medicines in the hospital system. It is also an open secret that due to these shortages, essential treatment services including surgeries were severely hampered in the main hospitals and other hospitals in the country. Now, for the first time in history, what we have heard is a story of doctors in this country losing their jobs. This is because expert sources in the health sector have now revealed that there is a serious and serious risk of medical graduates in this country losing their jobs in the coming period.
It has been pointed out that one of the reasons for this is the creation of medical professionals exceeding the number of vacancies approved by the Ministry of Health for doctors without a specific future plan. Furthermore, the sources have predicted that the failure to conduct an updated audit (Carder Revision) regarding the number of doctors to be approved in line with the current needs is also a reason for this crisis to worsen.
Accordingly, the data of the medical graduates who are scheduled to join the health sector in the country within the next two years is as follows. The first batch of 2016 is 1,476. The group that will appear again in 2016 is 545. The first batch of 2017 is 1,614. The group that will appear again in 2017 is 290. The first batch of 2018 is 1,790. The group that will appear again in 2018 was also recorded as 288. The total number of graduates aspiring to become doctors is over 5,351, according to sources in the health sector.
According to the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA), the main reason for this crisis is the lack of an updated audit of the number of doctors to be approved to meet the current needs, without a future plan, says Dr. Chamil Wijesinghe, media spokesperson for the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA). He further says that the problems in the production of medical professionals and recruitment in the health sector, exceeding the number of vacancies approved by the Ministry of Health for doctors, have exacerbated this situation.
“Currently, nearly 2,000 doctors graduate from state medical colleges in Sri Lanka annually. In addition, there are 500-600 doctors who come to the country after obtaining their medical degrees from foreign medical faculties and face the re-qualification examination every year. What we are seeing at this time is that with the resumption of the studies of medical students who were stuck for some time due to problems such as the recent Covid pandemic and the economic crisis, there is a backlog in granting government medical appointments. That means that several groups have now completed their medical degrees. There are currently three such groups. Two groups graduating from state universities and the group with foreign degrees, and another group will join this group by next September. Usually, after completing their medical degrees, there is a temporary registration with the Sri Lanka Medical Council. Only after that does the Ministry of Health intervene and provide them with internship training. That means one year of training. And to provide that training, Sri Lanka Not every hospital can do that. It should cover all four major fields of a hospital. That means there should be two specialist doctors each. There are several special criteria that say there should be a certain number of beds and patients. Also, they should be provided with accommodation facilities in the hospitals. There are only 65 such hospitals in Sri Lanka. That is a very limited number.
These hospitals can train only approximately 2000 medical students per year. It is for these reasons that the process of granting medical appointments has now stalled. Usually, when one group is completed, another group is given internship training. What has happened now is that a large number of doctors are coming out on one side. Therefore, on the other side, a problem has arisen in providing internship training to medical students. Currently, there are three groups of medical students who have completed their medical degrees. There are nearly two hundred doctors in the state medical faculties and another group of junior doctors. There are about 1200. In addition, there is a group that has obtained medical degrees abroad. Here, a big problem has arisen in providing standardized internship training to all three groups. The final examination of the group of not more than two hundred medical students in state medical faculties here will end in June 2025. That means they have been without their internship medical appointments for more than a year now. The other group completed their medical degrees in September 2025. Also, the group that obtained foreign medical degrees received their results in February 2026. That is how the three groups are currently aligned. At this time, there has been some discussion about how internship training will be provided to these three groups and what the procedure is. Decisions on such matters are made according to the Medical Ordinance of our country.”
The doctor further says that the Ministry of Health, the Sri Lanka Medical Council, and the University Grants Commission should take the necessary decisions in such cases according to the existing provisions. Another point he says is that post-internship placements should be made after the internship of the doctors who are being produced in large numbers in the country. That is, after a doctor completes his internship and becomes a full-time registered doctor with the Sri Lanka Medical Council, he should be appointed to the hospitals in the normal way. However, the doctor says that normally the number of doctors approved in the health system should be updated every three years, but at present, the number of doctors approved in the health system has not been updated to meet the current needs in ten years. Some hospitals did so in 2015, while others have not conducted any updated audits since 2018.
Doctors in government hospitals are now alleging that an updated audit should be conducted considering the population, number of patients, number of wards in a hospital, number of specialists, number of beds, etc., and that even though new fields have been added to the hospital system in the past, instead of giving new medical appointments, the responsibility of those fields is being transferred to the same doctors as before. They say that although the hospital system needs fifty doctors, the work that those doctors are currently doing has to be done by twenty-five doctors. Doctors say that although an updated audit conducted in 2018 stated that the number of doctors required for this purpose was twenty-five, the hospitals now need fifty doctors due to the addition of new ward units. However, doctors say that the reason why the ‘system’ does not show a shortage of doctors approved for hospitals at this time is because it has not conducted an updated audit for the number of doctors that should be approved to meet the current needs for about eight years. This means that there is currently a severe shortage of doctors in hospitals to meet the service requirements. In this situation, doctors who provide a large number of services with a small number of doctors say that they are currently performing ‘slave service’ in a way.
The Government Medical Officers Association spokesperson who spoke to us also said that if there is no ‘cadre revision’, the negative consequences will be that the hospitals will not be able to maintain services due to the lack of doctors in relation to the increasing service requirements. The other problem is that doctors who complete their internships and receive appointments are at high risk of losing their jobs in the future.
On average, the number of doctors who complete their internships and enter the health system in this country per year is between 2000-2500. Also, the number of doctors who retire and go abroad in a year is approximately close to a thousand. Therefore, the Government Medical Officers Association has been requesting the Ministry of Health to conduct an updated audit of the number of approved doctors in hospitals for a long time. They say that in the past, requests were even made to the current President in this regard. However, the Government Medical Officers' Association's media spokesperson says that there is currently a certain backwardness in properly identifying the need to update the approved number of doctors through the Ministry of Health and the Management Commission and even in taking the necessary decisions.
Many hospitals are facing a severe crisis due to lack of doctors – Specialist Dr. Chamal Sanjeewa
No doctors despite opening new units
“Currently, we are unable to provide services to the expanding health services and patients due to the lack of sufficient doctors in the hospitals. A maternity unit has now been started in Kilinochchi Hospital. Kilinochchi Hospital itself has only 250 beds. However, the new maternity hospital has 230 beds. Now, separate doctors have not been approved for it. Now, they have to work in the maternity hospital. This is just one example. There are many such hospitals in the health sector in this country. Even though new units have been started, there are no doctors to deploy them.” Dr. Chamal Wijesinghe explained the current crisis with examples.
There is a huge shortage not only of general doctors, but also of specialist doctors. For example, sources have indicated that there is only one specialist anesthesiologist in the entire Batticaloa district. That same specialist should be working in four basic hospitals, including the Batticaloa Teaching Hospital.
Specialist Dr. Chamal Sanjeewa, Chairman of the Medical and Civil Rights Trade Union Alliance, also says that as hospitals close without doctors, the number of doctors joining the queue of unemployed graduates is increasing rapidly. He says that due to the shortage of doctors in many hospitals across the island, maintaining patient care services is currently facing a serious crisis.
“Today, this shortage of doctors has become a serious crisis in maintaining services in rural hospitals, regional hospitals, base hospitals and many district and general hospitals. In some hospitals, only one doctor works twenty-four hours a day. Doctors working in some hospitals have also faced severe difficulties in obtaining leave. Also, due to the shortage of doctors including specialists and anaesthetists in hospitals in many districts of the island, including Kalutara, surgical and patient care services have been in a serious crisis. The number of doctors has not been approved for many years. As a result, almost five thousand doctors are already unemployed and waiting in line.”
The government spends approximately two hundred thousand rupees to produce a doctor in this country. All of this is the tax money of the people of this country. Parents also spend more than two hundred thousand rupees for each child to be educated abroad. In this way, parents in the country educate their children to produce productive citizens for the country. To serve the country. These medical students we spoke about are also such a category. Under such circumstances, not providing them with proper training and recruiting them into the public service is a serious harm to the tax-paying people of this country. Therefore, new intern medical appointments should be given to solve the shortage of doctors in hospitals and to provide the people of the country with the true freedom of free health. It is a need of the country's health system.
Raminda Mawatha