For doctors and patients: All public medical graduates to get paid house jobs

Under the new policy, the number of house jobs will equal the number of grads.

LAHORE:

The number of house-job seats in the province have been enhanced to match to the number of medical students graduating from public medical schools each year, according to the Health Department’s new house job policy for passing graduates in the province.

A notification in this regard, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, has been sent to principals of all public medical colleges: the medical directors of children’s hospitals in Multan and Lahore; chief executive of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology in Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi; the executive director of the Institute of Mental Health; all medical superintendents including those of district headquarters and tehsil headquarters hospitals in the Punjab.

The notification says that in order to improve patients’ care in hospitals and provide adequate training opportunities to medical graduates the competent authority had rationalised the existing policy for placement of house officers.

The first preference for house jobs will be given to fresh medical graduates from host medical colleges in the Punjab. The house officers will be paid salaries. The second preference will be given to fresh graduates of other public medical institutions in the Punjab. They too will be paid.

The notification states that after inducting house officers as per preferences, if some seats remained vacant, and the relevant hospital authorities considered it necessary for the improvement of patients’ care and for training needs, then honorary house jobs would be offered in the following order of preference: medical graduates from recognised private medical institutions in the Punjab and medical graduates of the Punjab qualified from foreign medical institutions registered by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.  The Health Department has also issued the direction that in the course of granting house jobs, only seats equal to the number of pass-cut graduates of the host medical college must be utilised and the rest kept dormant.

The department has also said that under no circumstances must graduates of private medical colleges and foreign graduates be given paid house jobs.

Copies of the notification has also been sent to the chief secretary, the adviser to the chief minister on health, the additional chief secretary, the secretary to governor, the secretary to chief minister, Lahore High Court registrar, the University of Health Sciences vice chancellor and the KEMU VC.

An additional secretary at the Health Department said, “The new policy is designed to end the problems of house officers once and for all. If the number of paid seats will be equal to the number of passing graduates, no graduates of public medical colleges will have to do honorary jobs. This was a longstanding demand by doctors which has now been fulfilled.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2014.