Civil Service Bureau expedites procedures to meet demand for healthcare workforce

AMMAN — Head of the Civil Service Bureau Sameh Nasser said that preparations are currently under way to meet the Health Ministry’s demand for medical cadres. 

According to the bureau, more than 3,800 candidates are set to sit for examinations for the positions of doctors, legal nurse consultants and assistant nurses.

In a statement, Nasser said that the bureau was asked by the ministry to provide it with urgent medical cadres to operate field hospitals in different regions of the Kingdom.

The bureau thus announced on Monday the names of 3,804 candidates who are eligible to sit for competitive exams for the positions of doctors, legal nurse consultants and assistant nurses. 

The candidates’ names were published in local newspapers, on the bureau’s Facebook page and its website on Monday.

“The candidates have been chosen according to the standard criteria for hiring workers in government jobs as well as criteria for medical positions, so these are all top-tier candidates,” said Malek Khasawneh, a media officer at the Civil Service Bureau. 

The bureau announced that it will also conduct interviews of the candidates alongside the examinations.

Khaled Rababa, president of the Jordan Nurses and Midwives Association, said that “this is a great piece of news, as there are hundreds, if not thousands, of trained and eligible nurses who were unemployed due to the stagnation of the sector before the pandemic.”

“More medical staff is always a good idea, with or without corona, as having less patients per nurse can make the Kingdom’s medical sector’s ranking rise,” Rababa told The Jordan Times.

Nasser said that the 2,103 medical vacancies will be filled by the end of this month, noting that the bureau’s staff “has been working nonstop to elaborate the logistical and technical details of the exams and interviews.”

The bureau chief said that 413 positions have already been filled in an attempt to aid the Ministry of Health’s rising needs amid a recent significant rise in coronavirus cases.

Press officer Khasawneh noted that the Civil Service Bureau has “taken the necessary measures, in coordination with the universities of Science and Technology and Mutah, to conduct the competitive examinations on their campuses adhering to public safety measures.”