FCPS quota reduction in Punjab to affect G-B doctors

Latter region will suffer as it does not have a single teaching hospital

GILGIT: The doors for specialisation in Punjab have almost been shut for doctors from Gilgit-Baltistan as the Punjab government has embarked on a new policy for specialisation.

The centralised induction policy – under which only a 3% quota has been reserved for doctors outside of Punjab – is likely to hit G-B the most as not a single teaching hospital exists in the whole region.

“The new policy means the doctors from the rest of the three provinces, plus Azad Jammu and Kashmir and G-B, will compete for the 3% quota for Fellowship of the College of Physicians and Surgeons (FCPS) in Punjab,” said Dr Arif Hussaini, a resident of Gilgit. He currently works as a resident surgeon at Allied Hospital Faisalabad.

“In that case, doctors from G-B [will be badly hit] as the region doesn’t have a single teaching hospital,” Hussaini told The Express Tribune on Wednesday.



Before the new policy, recently announced by the Punjab health department, doctors would be inducted by the respective hospitals for specialisation without any domicile issue.

“But now things are different as the very first requirement for FCPS is the Punjab domicile,” he added.

Prerequisites

Another prerequisite which makes specialisation more difficult for doctors from areas like G-B is grade marks for the graduates who have served for a year in peripheral areas of Punjab.

“Again, we don’t fall in that category as we can’t work in Punjab’s peripheries because of domicile issues,” said another doctor.

Only option

It is believed more than 60 MBBS seats in Punjab — filled by G-B students annually — will be affected if the policy is not reversed.

The issue cannot be resolved by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government either. There is reportedly a shortage of hospitals in K-P for their own graduates.

The doctors have urged G-B government to take up the issue with the Punjab government as Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz is the party voted into power by people in both the provinces.

“In view of backwardness of G-B, our government must either secure relaxation for domicile or increase the quote for G-B people on an urgent basis otherwise G-B will only have MBBS doctors in future instead of specialists,” the doctor said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2016.