Revokes transfer for five health workers

Of the 21 female health assistants who appealed to the health ministry to reconsider their transfer, the ministry’s human resource committee (HRC) revoked the transfer of five.

This means, five Basic Health Units (BHU) II, will not get a female health assistant. The committee made the decision on January 30.

Considering the people’s request for nurses to tend to their health issues during his gewog visits, the prime minister announced in his state of the nation report in June last year that the government will ensure that every BHU has at least one female nurse.

The health ministry had the target included in its annual performance agreement to have at least one female health assistant in all 184 BHU II by last month.

Initially, the health ministry issued transfer orders for 35 health assistants to the dzongkhags.

The ministry will now be posting 23 females and seven male health assistants to Mongar, Lhuentse, Pemagatshel, Trashiyangtse, Samdrupjongkhar, Chukha, Samtse, and Trongsa.

The male health assistants will replace the excess female health assistants who were transferred from health centres to BHU II that have none.

Health ministry’s assistant human resource officer, Sanjay Puwar said the ministry would issue the final list of the transfer order to the dzongkhags. The dzongkhags will then internally deploy the health assistants to the BHUs.

The Human Resource Division identified dzongkhags having excess female workers and listed their details including the number of years they have served in the particular health centre.

There is an approved service standard to determine how many health workers a dzongkhag should have, he said. For instance, if the service standard states that Mongar dzongkhag should have five health assistants and the dzongkhag has seven, then two is considered excess.

“The 35 health assistants were selected based on the number of years he or she served in the health centre. Some served in the same health centre for more than 20 years,” he said. “As far as possible, we tried to post the health assistants to the nearest dzongkhags from where they were stationed earlier.”

Of the five, two health assistants’ transfer was revoked because they are specialised in certain health services and their services are required in the national referral hospital for the benefit of patients from across the country.

A health official said the rest were considered based on medical grounds where the situation is severe and due to unavoidable circumstances. “While it is our duty to fulfill the target, it is also our responsibility to protect our health workers.”

Those who appealed based on marital ground and family issues were not considered.

Dechen Tshomo