Private teaching hospitals: Young Doctors threaten to sue regulator

PMDC rules mandate paid house job for all medical graduates.

LAHORE:

The Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab has decided to take the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) to court if the council does not ensure that house officers in private teaching hospitals are paid the same stipends as those in public teaching hospitals.

House officers in several private teaching hospitals across the Punjab make up to 40 per cent less than house officers in public hospitals.

While the Punjab government is currently negotiating with the YDA Punjab after weeks of province-wide protests, private hospitals house officers have complained that they are being neglected and underpaid.

According to the Conditions for Admission in MBBS/BDS Courses and Conditions for House Job Regulations 2010, which went into force on November 8, “The public and private teaching hospitals will be responsible to provide 100 per cent paid house job to all their graduates. The private house officers will be paid an amount not less than that being paid by the established public sector institutions.”

YDA Pakistan president Dr Salman Kazmi told The Express Tribune that the YDA had decided to challenge the PMDC for failing to enforce the regulation. He said that the PMDC had failed as a regulator. “It can formulate rules, but not implement them. The YDA Punjab will take it to court if MBBS graduates in house jobs are not paid according to the rules.” He said a number of private colleges were paying their house officers as little as Rs10,000. The pay structures for doctors have been challenged in private and public sectors, Majeed Chaudhry, the Lahore Medical and Dental College principal, said. Chaudhry said that it was the government’s responsibility to enforce the regulations in all teaching hospitals. He said that the average monthly salary of a house officer in private teaching hospitals was Rs16,000 to Rs17,000 as compared to Rs18,000 in public hospitals. “There is not much difference there,” he said.

Some house officers from the private teaching hospitals, however, told The Tribune that they were paid between Rs10,000 to Rs16,000. They regretted that the government had failed to implement the House Job Regulations 2010.

Dr Nadeem Akbar, the PMDC assistant director, said that the YDA Punjab-government negotiations would impact the private teaching hospitals’ stipends according to the PMDC regulations. He denied the YDA’s assertion that the PMDC was not enforcing its rules. “One by one we are contacting all teaching hospitals to ensure they adapt to the new rules.”  Some colleges, he said, had budget issues and could not increase the stipends. With no PMDC secretariat in Lahore, he said, the colleges had to be contacted by telephone, and this was why the process was taking so long.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2011.