Our Correspondent
TURA: The Health department on Monday issued a fresh advertisement for a walk-in interview for candidates from the region for Mid-Level Health Provider (MLHP) in sub-centres.
The advertisement comes two weeks after controversy erupted over the state government’s move to seek placements from two nursing colleges in Shillong to fill up the vacancies with the criteria of certificate in community health, violating a government rule by not advertising the same and failing to take into consideration that such a course ended three years ago in the Garo Hills region.
The advertisement issued by the National Health Mission primarily aimed at candidates from the Garo Hills region, calling for a walk-in interview at Tura on September 4 for filling up 21 vacant posts at various health and wellness sub-centres, expected to be in the same region.
But the problem lies in the requirement of the 6-month long certificate course on community health which no longer exists in Garo Hills.
Earlier, the MLHP post with the requirement of the certificate course was taken up by both B.Sc and GNM nurses through IGNOU study centres in Tura and Shillong.
But the course was integrated with the B.Sc nursing curriculum from 2019 on the orders of the Indian Nursing Council (INC) and IGNOU ended the same course as it had reached a saturation point.
The INC passed an order making eligible for recruitment all those B.Sc students who cleared the CCH course.
But Garo Hills does not have a single nursing college let alone the certificate course, post closure by IGNOU for any of the nursing students to avail.
The only two nursing colleges in the state are situated in NEIGRIHMS and Woodland Hospital, Shillong and most nursing students from Garo Hills selected in the government quota head out of the state to Mizoram and elsewhere.
As such, there is apprehension many who apply may not fulfill the criteria and the government is being blamed for failing to alert on the requirement months before they decided to go for this recruitment drive.
There are over a hundred GNM nurses currently in the region yet to avail employment and the scarcity in the job market can be best gauged from a recent recruitment for three nursing vacancies for which over a hundred candidates who cleared their nursing applied.
However, Principal Secretary to Health department, P Sampath Kumar, who has extensive knowledge about the Garo Hills region, having earlier served as West Garo Hills deputy commissioner, has provided a beacon of hope for the many job aspirants.
“We are planning to provide the required 6-month certificate course on Community Health for the aspirants from Garo Hills in line with the recruitment for the MLHP,” assured Sampath Kumar while speaking to The Meghalayan on Monday night.