I have been in the Ministry of Health (MOH) for 10 years, and the issue of non-transparency in selection criteria, sudden transfers, and meetings has worsened over the years.
The way selection and transfer processes are handled for government doctors continues to reflect a culture of opacity and disregard for basic professional decency.
There is still no meaningful transparency regarding selection criteria. Applicants are expected to invest time, effort, and hope into applications without knowing what is actually being assessed, how candidates are prioritised, or why certain outcomes occur.
Even result release dates remain vague or completely undisclosed, leaving doctors stuck in limbo for months.
This uncertainty affects real lives. Doctors are not interchangeable manpower units. Many are trying to plan child care, family commitments, housing, finances, examinations, and even whether they can continue serving long term in the public system.
Yet the process operates as though these considerations are irrelevant.
What makes this worse is the expectation that doctors simply “show up” to meetings or comply with transfer instructions at extremely short notice. Sudden calls, abrupt reporting requirements, and last-minute transfers have become so normalised that many no longer question how unreasonable it actually is.
Government doctors and health care staff are routinely asked to sacrifice time, energy, weekends, mental health, and personal lives in the name of service. The least the system can do is treat its own workforce with basic respect and decency.
Transparency should not be viewed as a privilege to be granted sparingly. Clear selection criteria, proper timelines for results, and adequate notice for meetings and transfers are fundamental aspects of professional workforce management.
Other sectors understand this. Health care administration should too.
Instead, many doctors are left feeling powerless, uninformed, and perpetually expected to rearrange their lives overnight without question.
It is difficult to talk about retaining health care workers in the public sector when the system continues to communicate that their time and personal lives are disposable.
The selection criteria for the Master’s programme hasn’t been transparent recently either. Some weren’t successful and aren’t clear about the reasons why.
I have heard the same from past years with regards to subspeciality applications as well.
There are no clear criteria for masters; eg Band 4 and above, or having published articles etc.
Most of the medical officers who get rejected (some two to three years in a row) are left in the dark as to why and they don’t know what they should do in order to be successful.
The author is a medical officer in the Ministry of Health. CodeBlue is providing the author anonymity because civil servants are prohibited from writing to the press.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
