News
SLNS and GMOA battle heats up over nutritionist jobs at state hospitals
The Sri Lanka Nutrition Society (SLNS) has alleged that the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) is blocking moves to employ Wayamba University graduates of Agriculture, Livestock and Nutrition from taking up nutritionist jobs in state hospitals.
SLNS President Anoma Chandrasekera who is also the head of the Department of Applied Nutrition, Wayamba University, said the GMOA had claimed that the graduates were not trained to look into human nutrition. However, Dr. Chandrasekera said the GMOA’s concerns appear to be with the title of the degree which reads as ‘Agriculture, Livestock and Nutrition’ and believe that the graduates are qualified only in animal nutrition.
Dr. Chandrasekera charged that hospitals continue to employ doctors for the job and they in turn use dieticians to execute the job. “Doctors send out circulars and get the work done through dieticians,” she said. In the maternity clinics MOHs (Medical Officers of Health) health workers and midwives do the job of a nutritionist.
This has resulted in patients not being properly told what food choices they can have. “Doctors stop them from consuming certain foods, but fail to give alternatives,” she said. For the past 20 years about 500 nutritionists have passed out of the Wayamba University but have failed to secure jobs as nutritionist in state hospitals. There is only one nutritionist who has been employed in the country–at the National hospital. Consequently, except for a few who work as nutritionists in the private hospitals, others have moved onto teaching and other administrative segments, Dr. Chandrasekera said.
She said that MBBS doctors do post graduate courses in nutrition and get the jobs. The general belief is that the doctors are more qualified to do the job however they do not have the necessary knowledge. She also said some general practitioners do an additional one year of a post graduate degree in nutrition and qualify for the job. “But these doctors are not ready to work in difficult stations including Vavuniya, Ampara and Jaffna. As a result people suffer.
The GMOA, while denouncing the accusations by the SLNS said they were against Wayamba University graduates taking up jobs as nutritionists in hospitals not because of the title, but because of the degree programme itself, which does not include any clinical practice in a hospital setting.
GMOA Additional Secretary Dr. Nalinda Herath said nutrition in hospitals should be handled by a properly qualified nutritionist who has got clinical training in a hospital setting. “When it involves the whole population, others can come in, but in hospitals only a clinical nutritionist specialised in the field can take up the post,” he said. He said nutrition was a broad field including cultivation, livestock and clinical service and these graduates could work as nutritionists in a community setting.
Drawing parallels, he said that in the United States and other western countries nutrition in hospitals is handled by physicians, anaesthetists, Surgeons and Paediatricians. Closer home, in India, hospital nutrition is done by personnel with degrees in dietetics. However, Sri Lanka does not have a dietetics degree programmes. At present nutritional advice is given by para medical officers including midwives, public health officers and personnel in the MOH offices.
Dr. Herath said that the GMOA is committed to improving the standard of the health service given to patients and is trying to bring in a scientific mode in the dissemination of nutrition to patients. “We want to be a benchmark to the world,” he said.
“We are planning to create a post graduate degree in nutrition through the post graduate Institute of Science. We have plans to start a Nutrition Physician Degree – a six-year course with the affiliation of the Health Ministry,” he said.
“We also want to bring in a proposal for a three- year diploma course in dietetics with the approval of the UGC and the Sri Lanka Medical Council,” he said.
Also, he said, the ongoing plans to establish a Clinica Faculty at the Wayamba University will enable the university to use the Kuliyapitiya hospital as the Teaching hospital for clinical practice for future Agriculture, Livestock and Nutrition undergraduates.