Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, Gopi Shankar, a nurse by training from Karimnagar district of Telangana, has been waiting for the state government to offer him an offer letter to join as staff nurse at a government hospital.
“The state government has issued notifications calling for nurses to join government hospitals on a temporary basis. I cleared the recruitment exam in 2018 for a permanent job, but still haven't gotten an offer letter,” says Gopi.
The delay in recruitment is faced by 4,300 candidates who had cleared the exam in 2018, but the recruitment was put on hold over a court case. On December 12, 2019, the Hyderabad High Court reserved its judgement. Seven months later, as several front life staff face the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Telangana government has taken no effort to expedite their recruitment.
“I haven’t found work in the past three years, the court too has not taken any effort to give their judgement considering the pandemic. We hoped the state would take an initiative to onboard those who have already cleared the exams due to the pandemic, but that too hasn't happened,” laments Gopi.
It was in 2018 that the Telangana government released its notification for the recruitment of 4,560 posts across medical, health, and family welfare departments through the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC). The jobs included 3,311 staff nurses, 398 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs), 369 pharmacists, 325 lab- technicians, 105 radiographers, and 52 physiotherapists.
“These were direct recruitments, the notification that came after a span of 14 to 15 years,” points out Laxman, General Secretary of the Nursing Officers Association (NOA), comprising private and government hospital nurses.
The government notification in 2018 had provisions that gave a maximum of 30% weightage in exams to contract employees.
“This is perceived as an unfair advantage for contract employees and the matter eventually went to court. The state's idea was to reduce the number of permanent government staff and replace them with contract staff to save pension money,” he says, adding, “Even if the state recruits these 4,300 people who wrote the exam, there still will be close to 10,000 vacancies in government hospitals that needs to be filled.”
The effort by the Telangana government to fill up vacancies came in the form of a notification for recruitment on June 28 for 509 posts. The effort was to fill vacancies at the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS), dedicated for COVID-19 treatment. Ever since the outbreak of the pandemic, the hospital had faced repeated delays to begin operations over lack of staff and pending works. The state government had then struggled to fill the posts which offered a temporary contract for merely one year.
On Friday, NOA wrote to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao expressing their anguish over the delay in recruitments for those who have cleared the PSC exams for the post, despite a raging pandemic.
Laxman is of the view that the state government should appoint a committee to expedite recruitment on an emergency basis. He says, “The state government is focusing on employing outsourced employees on a temporary basis. But there is no demand as the contract is only for one year and the salary package isn’t attractive.”