Bangladesh Public Service Commission has finalised its recommendation to recruit 2,000 doctors and 5,000 nurses to tackle the coronavirus crisis.

The doctors will be recruited from the waiting list of the 39th BCS while the nurses will be recruited from the waiting list of senior staff nurse recruitment examination held in 2018.

The recommendation was finalised at a meeting of the PSC today.

PSC Chairman Mohammad Sadiq said, "Coronavirus has created a national crisis. We took this initiative as soon as we saw the government demand for recruitment of doctors and nurses."

"Recruitment circulars, re-examinations are a long process. Since we had a waiting list of 6,000 doctors who passed the 39th BCS, the decision to appoint doctors from the list was made," he said.

The list will be sent to the government as soon as possible, he said, adding that similarly, they have recommended recruitment of 5,000 nurses.

He hoped that healthcare service will gain momentum once these newly recruited doctors and nurses join work.

The circular of the 39th special BCS was issued on April 10, 2018. The preliminary examination was held on August 3 of that year. A total of 37,538 candidates took part in the exams where 13,570 doctors passed the test.

Of them, 8,360 passed in the viva. The PSC recommended the appointment of 4,792 doctors from them. In November last year, the Ministry of Public Administration issued a circular appointing 4,443 of them to the health cadre. The rest were kept in the waiting list.

Health ministry and PSC officials said there was a discussion of recruiting 2,000 doctors on an ad hoc basis. However, there were many problems with such type of recruitment process in the past. So, PSC was in favour of recruiting BCS cadre. Later, the prime minister also approved it.

On the other hand, PSC issued a notification in 2017 for the recruitment of 4,000 senior staff nurses and 600 midwives under the Directorate of Services of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. A total of 16,900 job seekers took part in the examination. Of them, 10,000 candidates passed.

On August 19, 2018, the PSC finally selected 5,100 of them for recruitment. Those who were not recruited then are now recommended by the PSC for recruitment in nursing homes. However, even though the government wants to recruit 6,000 nurses, the PSC is not able to provide more than 5,000 nurses.

So far, more than 300 doctors have been infected with the coronavirus. Several doctors had to go to quarantine. Besides, some new hospitals are also being set up. As a result, demand letters were sent to the PSC for the recruitment of 2,000 doctors and 6,000 nurses to address the manpower crisis. The government hopes that the recruitment of new doctors and nurses will give some impetus to fight the crisis.