KARACHI: Provincial Health Minister, Sindh, Dr Azra Pechuho, recently stated that they would actively protest against "the unconstitutional policy” of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) which is to allow students from other provinces to be admitted into Sindh’s private medical colleges.
"We have learned that the PMDC has revoked the condition of domicile for admissions into private medical colleges in the country. If this is allowed to happen, we fear that it would deprive thousands of students from Sindh of the opportunity to get medical education in their own provincial medical colleges. This policy is against our students, and we would strongly protest against its implementation,” Dr Azra Pechuho said during a press conference at a local hotel in Karachi.
Fearing an acute shortage of doctors in Sindh if students from other provinces are allowed to take admissions in the private medical colleges of the province, the Vice-Chancellors of Sindh’s medical universities, including the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) and Jinnah Sindh Medical University (JSMU), have also opposed the new admission policy announced by the PMDC in its recent letter to the Vice-Chancellors of all the medical varsities in the province, saying no such decision had been taken or given approval to by the last meeting of the PMDC.
At the same time, various bodies, including the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) and medical varsities in Sindh, have also criticized the constitution of an advisory committee by the State Minister for Health, Dr Zafar Mirza, to look after the affairs of the PMDC, arguing that State Health Minister had no authority to constitute any such committee, which also lacked any representative from any public medical varsity of the province.
Health Minister, Dr Azra Pechuho, maintained that never in the history had the restriction of domicile for admissions in the medical colleges been lifted. She added that if it happened, the Sindh and Baluchistan provinces would badly suffer and students from two other provinces would be dominating at their private medical colleges and would return to their provinces after getting medical education.
“I want to make one thing very clear that we are not against students from other provinces, but we do not want our students to suffer due to this policy. Once all our students who fulfil the criteria get the admissions into the medical colleges, we have no objection to accommodating students from other provinces,” she maintained.
According to provincial health authorities, Sindh is already facing an acute shortage of doctors as the majority of doctors are women, most of whom do not join the profession while many do not want to be posted away from their homes or in other cities of the province.
On the other hand, most male doctors also leave the country for greener pastures abroad while a sizeable number of them do not join the government service and try to keep practicing in major cities, causing an immense shortage of doctors in the rural areas of the province.
