Brain drain: ‘If doctors can serve in the deserts of the Middle East, why not here?’

Members of Pakistan Medical Association discuss problems related to salaries, structure and postings in Sindh.

KARACHI: “[If ] doctors are willing to serve in the deserts of the Middle East, if given the proper facilities, why wouldn’t they serve their own country?” asked Dr Samrina Hashmi, former general secretary and the focal person for Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), Sindh.

Members of the PMA, Sindh, met on Sunday at PMA headquarters, Sir Aga Khan III Road to discuss problems related to their salaries, structure and postings in the province.

Around 80 members attended the meeting from all divisions of Sindh, including Larkana, Khairpur, Dadu, Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Mithi, Badin, Thatta, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Adam, Hala and Karachi, for the restructuring and reorganisation of the Sindh chapter of the PMA.

They pointed out that the salaries in Sindh are much lower than those of doctors in other provinces. “It’s almost one-third of what doctors in the Punjab get,” said Dr Habib Soomro.  The house officers in Sindh are getting Rs12,000 per month while those in the Punjab get Rs22,000. Postgraduate trainees in Sindh get Rs18,000 per month while they get Rs30,000 in the Punjab, he added.

It is because of such negligence by the Sindh health department that doctors want to move abroad, the members said.  “New graduates go to the US and the UK for training and if they get good job offers, they stay there,” said Dr Hashmi. Meanwhile, the senior doctors too are moving out, mostly to the Middle East, she said.

Target killings

The doctors also discussed target killing of doctors and condemned the recent brutal murder of Dr Amar Lal Khatri in Jacobabad. They demanded the killers be arrested. Dr Hashmi said that in the last year, at least 10 doctors were killed in Karachi alone.

Another doctor, on condition of anonymity, said that apart from target killings, the problems of doctors in rural Sindh are very different from those in Karachi. “They can accuse us of rape or blasphemy, and then a jirga will decide how much money is enough compensation for it,” the doctor said.

Structural problems

Dr Hashmi said that the doctors are dismayed at the attitude of the government towards the medical fraternity in Sindh.  The condition of doctors in Sindh is exceptionally bad in terms of service structure, salaries, promotions and opportunities.

The doctors were concerned about the lack of a proper service structure for them. While scores of doctors remain jobless, the Sindh health department has failed to hold a departmental promotion committee (DPC) meeting, and fill the 700 to 800 vacant seats in the department. The DPC meeting has not been held for at least six years while the Sindh Public Service Commission for doctors has not been organised for 10 to 12 years, said Dr Habib Soomro.

Basic health facilities in the province are also lacking, said Dr Hashmi. Around 2,500 basic health units across the province are closed and nobody is doing anything about it, she added.

The issue of the Sindh Medical College University was also discussed at length. PMA members were of the view that stern steps should be taken in line with the 18th Amendment for devolution.

The so-called hindrances created by the federal government against the attachment of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) with Sindh Medical College should be removed.

Dr Hashmi said that SMC was formed with the efforts of PMA and they had decided that it would be attached to JPMC soon, but that has yet to happen.

All members demanded the government increase the salaries of doctors in Sindh, adopt a uniform policy and take steps for their security, failing which the doctors will be left with no choice but to observe a strike across the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2011.