By Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Oct. 23: The Ministry of Health and Population is facing hurdles in the employee’s adjustment process.
The flawed process from the beginning has created several problems in adjusting the staffers at the prescribed places and positions.
After Nepal became federal republic with seven States, health employees, like the police personnel and staff members from the public administration department, must be adjusted to health offices and departments of all seven States.
The health workers have been eyeing to be stationed at the offices of the capital city and Terai areas as their preferred work places. But this demand posed difficulty for the ministry to divide the working places for the employees, said spokesperson of MoHP Mahendra Shrestha.
“All the posts in the three districts of the Kathmandu Valley and 20 districts of Terai are full of health employees but the posts in 30 hill and Himalayan districts have remained almost vacant,” said Shrestha. But all the health employees want to serve at the urban areas and no one prefer to go to rural areas, added Shrestha.
More than 12,000 health workers had registered their written complaints with the Ministry of Health and Population and the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration (MoFAGA), expressing dissatisfaction over the current adjustment process. “Among the complaints we have found that 4,000 of them were genuine ones,” said Shrestha adding that around 900 complaints were addressed.
“We are trying to sort out all the complaints as soon as possible,” he said. “But still every health worker should be concerned about the fact that all of their demands may not get fulfilled.” They must go to serve at the prescribed places, added Shrestha.
Shrestha said as the health employees adjustment was done by the MoFAGA, the balance in adjusting the employees was not correct right from the beginning. “And now we are facing the real challenge,” he added. The MoFAGA provided responsibilities of addressing the complaints of health workers for MoPH two months ago, said spokesperson of the MoFAGA Bhupal Baral.
The health workers, including staff nurses, auxiliary nurse midwives, health assistants and public health officers from level four to seven had registered their complaints demanding transfer from their present workplaces or positions.
The MoHP on Tuesday was seen surrounded by the health workers who had filed their complaints expressing dissatisfaction over their adjustment.
The health sector has been messed up due to the adjustment process, said a health officer, Om Nepal. It seems that proper homework was not done by the government for the staff adjustment in the health sector, said Nepal.
The health adjustment process was carried out late and still the complaints have not been addressed, nothing is irresponsible than this, said Anu Rauniyar of Janakpur, a health worker, who had filed her complaint at the Ministry.
Some health workers were also found of not attending their work at the places where they were deployed.
Surya Bahadur Khadka, a health officer, who was adjusted in Kathmandu Metropolitan City from Public Health Office Kathmandu, said, “I do not have attendance in my new office, they say there is no vacant position for my post.”
Under the adjustment process, experienced employees are transferred to somewhere else and it is affecting various services as well, said Khadka.