Women and children queue up outside the Army medical camp in Thar. Doctors unwilling to serve in Thar and its adjoining areas is proving to be one of the biggest challenges faced by the health department, the SC was told on Thursday. PHOTO: ONLINE
The apex court bench, comprising three members, said the government can make it compulsory for final-year medical students to serve in Thar and other remote areas for at least six months before they are awarded their professional degrees. The issue of the lack of medical facilities and doctors arose when a three-member bench took up the suo motu case on the recent deaths of over 100 children in Tharparkar.
Health secretary Iqbal Hussain Durrani informed the judges that he had posted 25 doctors immediately after the disaster took place. “But, only nine of them have reported because the rest of them are not willing to serve in the rural areas,” he said.
One of the bench members, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, remarked that most of the government doctors posted in Mithi are in Karachi by paying half of their salaries to the medical superintendents as bribe. The health secretary admitted that the doctors are not willing to serve outside Karachi but they’ve been issued show-cause notices. Chief Justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Jillani observed the primary healthcare system was very weak in the rural areas due to a lack of the spirit to serve the community.
Earlier, the director-general for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority told the judges that they had received a letter from the World Health Organisation, warning of a possible drought in Sindh.
Chief secretary Sajjad Saleem Hotiana replied they had taken effective measures. CJ Jillani concluded that the incompetence of officers was the main factor behind the current situation in Thar. The bench directed the chief secretary to file, within a week, a report on the causes of the drought in Thar and what measures the irrigation department would suggest in the long term.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 21st, 2014.
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And put big fine on parents/husbands who force their doctor wives not to work keep them in house. and fine for those too who are more than willing to study medicine on public money and not ready to go to rural areas for duty.
I believe that forcing doctors to serve in areas they do not want to go amounts to coercion. They are not army cadets who can be posted to tough stations no matter what their feelings are about the matter.
If doctors are unwilling to go to Thar or other remote desert areas then the proper way to make them go is to offer high salaries.
I am baffled as to how the Supreme Court can take it upon itself to decide the matter of how doctors are assigned postings!