Medical training: Doctors ask prime minister to look into rule-breaking at private colleges

YDA says private colleges not giving paid training to graduates.

LAHORE: The Young Doctors Association (YDA) has asked the government to force private medical colleges and hospitals to comply with regulations stating that they must create seats for postgraduate training and provide free treatment to 50% of their patients.

The YDA has written to the federal ombudsman and the Prime Minister’s Secretariat stating that private colleges and hospitals are violating Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) and College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan (CPSP) rules.

Dr Ghazanfar Ali, YDA leader at Mayo Hospital, wrote to the ombudsman to complain that the lack of postgraduate training seats at private medical colleges and hospitals meant increased competition for the jobs at public hospitals which were meant for public sector graduates.



“There are more than 110 private medical and dental colleges in Pakistan and most of them charge more than Rs 500,000 per year as fees. Most of these hospitals are unfortunately not providing paid house jobs and post graduate training to their graduates. Some of them which are providing these jobs are not paying as much as in the government sector. A private college in Lahore is paying just Rs18,000 per month as stipend to its postgraduate trainees who have to work there for four years. Hence all the graduates these colleges are producing are trying to join public hospitals like Mayo and Service Hospital for their training. The slots available at these hospitals run out and we, the public sector graduates, are not able to get training at our own institutions,” Dr Ali wrote.

PMDC and CPSP rules require all medical institutions to give paid house jobs and postgraduate training to their graduates, he said. Private colleges were also required to create 500-bed hospitals and provide free treatment at half of them, but none of these hospitals was doing so.

“We request you to take strict actions against the PMDC for not getting its rules implemented and violating the law. Please help us to get paid house job and postgraduate training at our own institutes,” the letter read.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Dr Salman Kazmi of the YDA blamed the PMDC for the lack of postgraduate training at 26 private medical and dental colleges and their teaching hospitals. He said that PMDC and CPSP rules stated that these colleges must give paid training to their graduates. “They are also bound to provide free treatment to 50% of their patients, which they are not,” he said.

“We appeal to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to look into the matter and direct the departments concerned to ensure that all the unpaid doctors get their salaries after the creation of seats in public and private sector medical colleges of the province. A letter in this regard has been dispatched to the PM’s Secretariat,” he said.

The PMDC registrar is currently suspended and its elections are due, so nobody from the council was available to comment on the issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2013.