PESHAWAR, March 18: NWFP Governor Khalilur Rehman on Saturday urged doctors and health workers to rise up to the humanitarian challenge of serving people in remote parts of the province and work hard to achieve the United Nations’ millennium development goals (MDGs) in the health sector.

“I am convinced that doctors will honour their commitment to serve patients. This province desperately needs God-fearing doctors,” the governor told a gathering at the 40th convocation of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Pakistan.

Currently there is a shortage of doctors in the province. Statistics show that there is only one doctor for 17,000 persons.

“I request you to inculcate in yourself a sense of ethics, morality and integrity. Today your dreams have been fulfilled,” he told some 200 doctors on whom he conferred postgraduate degrees in various disciplines of medical sciences.

Mr Rehman said that the doctors had immense responsibility in the achievement of the millennium development goals set forth by the United Nations. He said there was an urgent need to eradicate diseases such as malaria, typhoid and TB, etc, from the country.

The governor said that the NWFP and Federally Administered Areas were backward and lacked health services and urged the doctors to serve the people in remote parts of the country.

He cautioned medical students and doctors against taking part in politics and asked them to concentrate on their studies and serve ailing humanity.

Dr Mohammad Sultan Farooqui, president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan, welcomed the participants and gave an overview of the postgraduate medical studies in the country.

“Pakistan has struggled hard to establish health institutions. When the country came into existence in 1947 there were only 48 doctors and one undergraduate medical college,” he said.

At present, he said, the country has 13,747 doctors, 800 of whom belong to the NWFP.