HRMIS and Annual Transfers

Provision of high quality health care while ensuring equity, is both a priority and an obligation of the
health care system. This can only be achieved by optimal management of human resources. Medical
professionals are the leading human resource in the health sector. In this report we examine the
administrative deficiencies of Medical Human Resource Recruitment and Deployment (MHRRD) in
Department of Health (DoH).

The task of MHRRD is performed only at a national level in Sri Lanka and the accountability lies with
Deputy Director General assigned with Medical Services (DOG/ MS) in DoH. MHRRD is governed by the
Establishment code, Transfer circular of Grade Medical officers and by consensus of the stake holders.

Currently DOG (MS) does not have either hard or soft processed data on Medical Officers. All efforts
made by the Minister of Health and the main stake holder, Government Medical Officers Association
(GMOA) to establish CJ comprehensive computerized database of Medical Officers have not succeeded
to- date due to administrative failures. Today, DoH operates without a data base of Medical Officers.

‘Annual transfers’ is the most vital component in MHRRD and all other transfers evolve around it.
However, we have observed that annual transfers were never ordered on time and the delays were extremely significant and unacceptable.

Moreover, DOG (MS) has failed to implement majority of the transfers, mainly due to insubordination of
Heads- of- Institutions, which has become the norm.

Considering the inability of the Ministry of Health to implement an efficient MHRRD, GMOA proposed a
computerized Human Resource Management and Information System (HRMIS). Implementation of
HRMIS was also unsuccessful due administrative failures and insubordination in the Ministry of Health.
Several organizations, including Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA)
affiliated to Presidential Secretariat and GMOA has expressed displeasure over these administrative
failures.

As such, we recommend

1. Establishment of a computerized data base of medical professionals.
2. Streamlining of recruitment and deployment according to governing policies