medical technologists and pharmacists

working in various government health service sectors, including various government medical colleges, hospitals and police stations, from 11th grade to 10th grade.

Pharmacist going to 10th gradeOn Tuesday (May 20), a proposal was sent from the Health Services Division of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to the Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration to take necessary action in this regard.

The proposal was sent in a memorandum signed by Sujit Debnath, Senior Assistant Secretary of the Health Services Department.

The Health Services Department said that memorandums have been submitted from various institutions regarding the upgrading of the posts of Medical Technologist and Pharmacist in various health services institutions to Grade 10. As a result, a committee was formed by the Health Department. The committee has given its opinion for upgrading the said posts to Grade 10.

It was sent to take necessary measures to upgrade the Medical Technologist and Pharmacist posts from 11th grade to 10th grade.

Sources said that the process

of increasing the rank and pay scale of medical technologists and medical assistants has been stalled for more than two decades. They have been demanding this ever since the rank and pay scale of diploma engineers was increased.

After the interim government took office, the demand for Grade 10 status for medical technologists and pharmacists came up for discussion. An inter-ministerial meeting was held on January 2 regarding this. If a positive decision is made in the meeting, the wait of almost two decades for medical technologists and pharmacists is going to end.

According to the World Health

Organization guidelines, there should be three nurses and five medical technologists for every doctor. Due to administrative complications, the recruitment of medical technologists has been suspended for more than 14 years, and the number of medical technologists working in government jobs is only 4,106 and the total number of posts is 5,975. About 7,000 diploma pharmacists are working in various health institutions in Bangladesh.