The government plans to recruit 13,000 nurses between 2027 and 2029 to ease staff shortages in the public health system, Health and Mass Media Minister Dr Nalinda Jayatissa said on Sunday.
He said the recruitment plan is based on projected staffing needs under the national health policy and the strategic plan for 2025 to 2035. The intake will need approval from the Department of Management Services of the Ministry of Finance.
Dr Jayatissa was speaking at a ceremony at Temple Trees in Colombo, where 2,819 newly trained nurses received letters of appointment as Grade III nursing officers. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake attended as patron of the event.
The new officers belong to the 2020 student nursing cohort. They entered nursing colleges in 2023, after sitting the GCE Advanced Level examination in the Science and Mathematics streams in 2019 and 2020, and completed a three-year Higher Diploma programme at 16 nursing colleges across the country.
They will be posted to hospitals and health institutions run by the central government and by provincial councils. At the same ceremony, 76 Grade I nursing officers in the hospital service received letters promoting them to the Special Grade.
The Minister said the government has stepped up efforts to fill vacancies across the hospital network in order to improve the quality of health services. Deputy Health Minister Dr Hansaka Wijemuni and Health Ministry Secretary Dr Anil Jasinghe were among the officials present.
Background
Nurses make up a large share of the workforce in Sri Lanka’s state hospitals, which treat the majority of patients in the country and are run by both the central government and provincial councils. Nursing officers are trained at government nursing colleges and are appointed to the state health service after completing the programme.
Staffing of this kind is normally planned in stages. A ministry sets out the cadre it needs, and the Department of Management Services at the Finance Ministry must approve new posts before recruitment can begin. That is why the 13,000 figure is described as a plan that depends on approval, not a confirmed number of vacancies advertised.
The appointments announced on Sunday are for a cohort that began its studies in 2023, which gives an indication of the gap between entry to nursing college and a first posting.
What it means
If the Finance Ministry gives its approval, hospitals could receive more nursing staff over the next three years. Patients in state hospitals, particularly in wards and clinics that have reported shortages, would be the main group affected.
For young people considering a career in nursing, the plan points to continuing demand in the public sector between 2027 and 2029, although the number of posts and the timing of each intake will depend on the approval process and on later announcements from the Health Ministry.
