Allegations of bribery and making appointments in excess of the vacancies in public hospitals have thrown the process of recruitment of 4,100 senior staff nurses in disarray, prompting many of them to demonstrate in the city Sunday.
Authorities denied the allegations of bribery, but admitted that there might be some errors as they had to make the appointments expeditiously in order to comply with a court order.
The Directorate of Nursing Services on September 9 published a list of nurses and asked them to join their workplaces by September 18.
But a large number of nurses, who rushed to their designated hospitals in Gazipur, Narsingdi, Mymensingh, Jessore, Gopalganj, Tangail and Khulna districts, were sent back by the hospital authorities as the appointment letters outnumbered the approved vacancies.
Transfer orders were prepared hurriedly in the dead of night in exchange for hefty sums of bribe, which eventually opened the way for the flawed list, sources alleged.
The disgruntled nurses who were barred from joining their workplaces despite submitting the appointment letters staged demonstrations in front of the office of Directorate of Nursing Services at Motijheel Sunday.
“A few health ministry officials in connivance with some recruitment committee members have gone about the business of filling up the vacant nurse posts in an unprecedented manner. They transferred new recruits to their preferred locations in exchange for money,” said M Asaduzzaman Jewel, secretary general of an association of unemployed diploma nurses.
A source claimed that a newly-appointed nurse had to pay a sum between Tk50,000 and Tk200,000 to get posted at hospitals in and around the capital.
Health ministry joint secretary (hospital and nursing) Mosharraf Hossain serves as the president of the recruitment committee while director at the Directorate of Nursing Service Taslima Begum has been working as the member secretary of the committee.
Wishing anonymity, a few members of the recruitment committee told the Dhaka Tribune that they had appointed more people than the vacant posts in some hospitals, but insisted that the mistakes were committed due to the hasty recruitment process.
They however refused to make any comment about the bribery allegations.
“There had been an embargo on the nurses’ recruitment as a case was pending with the High Court. We had to act hurriedly to recruit them since the embargo was lifted for a short period of time,” said a recruitment committee member.
The recruitment of nurses has long been stalled due to some government initiatives including upgrading of nurses’ status and extending their age limit for joining government jobs to 36 years.
According to the existing provision, the recruitment of second class officers is supposed to be done through Public Service Commission (PSC).
However, in view of acute crisis at many government health care institutions, the government decided to appoint a total of 4100 nurses on ad-hoc basis.
As a result, students of different nursing institutes who passed their diploma courses between 1999 and 2006 were directly appointed on the basis of their academic results.
The Dhaka Tribune learnt that a total of 35 nurses were appointed against 20 vacancies at Gazipur Sadar Hospital, 40 were appointed against 20 vacancies at Narsingdi and Tangail Sadar Hospital each, 170 recruited against 118 vacancies at Mymensingh, 40 against 15 posts at Jessore.
Forty nurses got appointments for 33 posts at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital while 36 nurses were sent to Jamalpur to fill 20 vacant posts there.
All of the primarily-recruited nurses were also instructed to report at the desk of nursing services directorate.
When contacted, member secretary of the recruitment committee Taslima Begum said there might have been some shortcomings in the list as the committee acted in the quickest possible manner to avoid legal complexities.
When asked if she knew how many nurses have been appointed in excess of the requirements, Taslima said she could not tell the exact figure before September 19.
“I didn’t see any sort of financial irregularities in the recruitment process,” she noted.