Iraqi Health Ministry Allocates 3,000 Jobs

Text of report by Iraqi Media Network weekly newspaper Al-Sabah on 27 July

[Report by Sa'di Ghazalah in Baghdad: "The Health Ministry Distributes 3,000 Jobs to its Departments."]

The Health Ministry has ordered the suspension of appointing and reappointing employees, except physicians, dentists, pharmacists, and nurses. The ministry also asked for stopping appointments under contracts, since it has provided its departments with 3,000 jobs it has recently obtained from the Finance Ministry in order to absorb employees working under contracts.

In a statement to the Al-Sabah newspaper, Khamis al-Sa’d, Health Ministry under secretary for administrative affairs, said that the ministry has instructed all its health departments to stop appointments and reappointments, with the exception of physicians, dentists, pharmacists, and nurses, and to suspend the contract system in order to absorb employees currently working under contracts. The ministry, he said, has recently obtained 3,000 jobs as part of its annual share and distributed them to its health departments over the past few days based on each governorate’s population and needs.

The Finance Ministry, he said, has formally agreed to allocate 1,000 jobs for doctors who have returned from abroad or quit their jobs and are still in Iraq. He said that the Health Ministry appointed 300 physicians of different specialties before obtaining the approval and offered many facilities for physicians abroad to return to the country, the latest being instructions to the health departments to accept physicians working in other departments if they submit their official papers. He also said that the Council of Ministers has promised to provide more jobs if the allocated ones fail to meet the ministry’s needs. He said that jobs and job grades should be redistributed in a fairer way to many health departments and institutions, since some of them have more employees than they need and some others do not have enough employees. He also said that some health centres have 17 dentists, while half of the 1,800 health care centres have only doctor aides, who are not authorized to write medical prescriptions. In conclusion, he said that the ongoing return of doctors from abroad and the improving security situation will remedy the current shortage in these centres.

Originally published by Al-Sabah, Baghdad, in Arabic 27 Jul 08.

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