The Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) has stopped the mandatory annual health check-up, which was scheduled to take place from August 2018 due to huge implication on the administrative cost and implications.

Health ministry in collaboration with the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) was supposed to conduct the annual health check-up for all civil servants to promote a healthier lifestyle from June 2018.

The initiative to conduct annual health check-up for all civil servants was decided after the commission wrote to the health ministry in June 2016. The decision was shared during the biennial health conference in 2017.

In an earlier interview with Kuensel, Chairperson of RCSC, Dasho Karma Tshiteem, said that the intention for introducing such initiative was to help make civil servants more health conscious.

RCSC’s well-being senior human resource officer, Sherab Zangpo, said the RCSC and health ministry had developed annual health check-up manual that was presented to the commission and implications were discussed.

“It was found that if it was made mandatory civil servants from far places would ask for mileage and daily allowances,”Sherab Zangpo said. “Since more than 50 percent of civil servants are in Thimphu, the national referral hospital would face the biggest challenge and might divert the focus from attending the regular patients.”

The commission also initiated health screening to promote and improve civil servants’ health.

Sherab Zangpo said the commission instead decided to begin through “softer approach” like advocating civil servants on the importance of health and healthy life.

“The RCSC will work with the health ministry to develop advocacy materials and strategies to reach out to the civil servants for health check-ups,” he said.

The manual will contain three parts that will cover how to approach different hospitals or basic health units, timeline to visit health centers, different diseases that would be screened, and reporting form.

The RCSC and health officials are working on the advocacy. After advocacy, civil servants can go for health screening whenever possible.

The commission and health ministry is expected come up with a system for civil servants in Thimphu. A separate unit may be created for screening process.

As of June 2018, there was close to 29,000 civil servants in the country including 3,195 on contract. More than 8,000 civil servants are in Thimphu.

Yangchen C Rinzin