Sixty one of the employees were recruited through a system which did not wait for
allocation of posts through the responsible ministry at the time of employment. There
were 7 employees who were recruited through the ministry by a way of traditional gov-
ernment recruitment system where school leavers had to wait for their job posts. This is
unlike the rigorous modern recruitment system involving job advertisements, applica-
tions and selection. It was interesting to find out how these employees were recruited.
Recruitment from training institutions
Under normal circumstances, it is expected that local authority or ministry officials
would visit a training institution and try to attract some students who might be inter-
ested. However there was only 1 employee who gained employment through a school
visit. The majority of staff (84) were employed using a different arrangement.
Job advertisement and selection
Korogwe District Council did take some initiatives to recruit through advertisement and
eight employees were recruited this way. However, the data from in-depth interviews
showed that those recruited through the council were medical attendants who had only
‘standard seven’ education. The advertisement was usually through the word of mouth
or a notice posted on the district council notice board.
Head hunting
The last proposition was recruitment through poaching. That is a local authority official
approached an identified employee working in another organisation and was poached to
work for the council. However, there was only one employee who was recruited through
poaching. Three employees were informally recruited but later were formally employed
although it was not clear how this was done.
For reasons that remain unclear, the relaxation was removed and recruitment and selec-
tion remained entirely the responsibility of the ministry of health and social welfare.
The implications are that local level initiatives are paralysed and there are dangers that
quality of staff may be compromised as one official said:
... We provide for staff recruitment during the planning and budgeting process in every fi-
nancial year. We request the ministry to help us to fill the vacant posts. However, this has
not worked well because it takes a very long time to follow-up before we get one, and at
times we get disappointed because the person we receive cannot deliver to our expectations.
(Comments from one human resource officer)Shortages of qualified staff for healthcare in the labour market has many explana-
tions including a lack of students who are interested in a career in the health sector be-
cause of the unfavourable working environment, less reward systems and opportunities
compared to other sectors like business and finance. It is now very common to find most
students who perform very well in chemistry and biology joining arts related degrees at
universities and colleges. Also, since the private sector is growing and competing for
the same resources, the bureaucratic recruitment approach through the principal is likely
to be less effective in addressing the problems of quality and quantity of human re-
sources for healthcare.