Frontline health workers of the Samdech Techo Voluntary Youth Doctor Association (TYDA). TYDA
Minister of Civil Service Prum Sokha has decided to set up a working group tasked with examining the recruitment of 3,000 candidates into the healthcare civil service for this year.
In a directive dated May 10, Sokha said the Kingdom’s hospitals are short-staffed due to Covid-19.
Civil service ministry secretary of state Youk Bunna will head the working group with 27 other officials serving as deputies.
The group will examine the recruitment process for the candidates to ensure that those recruited meet all of the job requirements and that there is a fair and efficient procedure for selecting them.
The group must cooperate with the ministries of Health and Economy and Finance and other relevant entities, and must prepare documents for candidates who pass their vetting process so that the civil service minister can review them and decide whether to bring them into the government employment framework.
Sokha said the working group had to set up mechanisms and divide responsibilities and priority tasks in each department that would enable them to perform these duties quickly.
The group will be able to designate other officials to perform work as needed. They have to make an annual report and ask the minister for advice when pressing problems arise.
Bunna told The Post on May 13 that the working group is rushing to fulfil their tasks and that many frontline health workers are candidates to be recruited as healthcare civil servants.
“We can recruit over 3,000 people into the healthcare civil service framework to fight Covid-19,” he said, adding that Prime Minister Hun Sen had recommended that candidates who participated in frontline work against Covid-19 become officials in the health sector and relevant sectors.
Bunna said the working group will strive to employ them within the government framework before year’s end so that they can begin to draw salaries and benefits as soon as possible.
Transparency International Cambodia executive director Pech Pisey supported the recruitment of frontline medical doctors who have actively participated in fighting Covid-19.
“What we want to encourage is that the opportunities be offered to candidates in an equitable manner and that they have the capacity to do the work required of them as civil servants,” he said.
