SAHIWAL: King Edward Medical University Vice Chancellor Dr Khalid Masood Gondal says around 80pc of medical graduates at present are women and only 20 percent of them serve as doctors after their marriage while the rest leave. He has termed it the biggest crisis in the health education because women doctors do not do jobs without consent of their families, especially the in-laws.

“In most cases, their family members or in-laws forbid them from doing jobs,” Dr Khalid said during his address to the first convocation of the Sahiwal Medical College (SMC) on Monday.

Punjab Governor and SMC Chancellor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar conferred MBBS degrees on 400 medical graduates of the medical college during the convocation held on the college premises. Out of the 400 graduates who received their degrees, 260 were women.

Continuing with the issue of the women doctors leaving the profession after marriage, Dr Khalid said this was a big challenge in Punjab because the margin of women passing MBBS was very high compared to men while a little percentage of them joined the profession.

“This need to be addressed,” Dr Khalid demanded.

He said that under the Supreme Court directions, the medical universities were bound to follow an open merit policy but women had outnumbered their male counterparts under the policy.

Dr Khalid urged the parents to allow their daughters to continue medical jobs even after their marriage because the state invested Rs7.2m on each doctor during his/her five-year study at any public sector institution.

Giving figures to prove his point, he said each year 150,000 students appeared in medical entrance test, out of them only 35,000 were selected for admission to medical college and 80pc of them were females.

Speaking on the occasion, the governor said medical education was one of the strong areas of Pakistan because its graduates were serving all over the world.

He stressed the need of merit and transparency in health and education sectors as the merit was not followed there, especially in appointment of VCs of the universities.

Mr Sarwar said he had appointed 20 VCs in both medical and other public sector educational institutions during his ongoing tenure.

“I never violated merit. I selected the best of the best as VCs,” he told the audience. The governor also stressed prevention of diseases, terming it more important than cure. He said treatment of disease was important but its prevention and awareness of it was another dimension. He also urged the parents and in-laws of women doctors to allow their daughters/sisters/ daughters-in-laws to continue with their profession.

The governor thanked local philanthropists like Faristyaa family and Sheikh Younis for donating huge funds for welfare of public health institutions.

University of Health Sciences VC Prof Dr Javed Akram also talked about the issue of women graduates not working as doctors. He asked female doctors to work in the field to return what was invested on them by the state.

SMC Principal Prof Dr Zahid Kamal demanded allocation of funds for an auditorium, doctors’ residential colony and gymnasium of the college.

The governor assured him that his office would coordinate with the Higher Education Commission and the Punjab government for the release of required funds.

The governor gave away medals to the students who showed distinction in their studies.

A large number of parents, medical professionals, representatives of civil society, philanthropists and health department officials were also present.

OVERSEAS PAKISTANIS: Governor Chaudhry Sarwar says the overseas Pakistanis are contributing Rs22bn to the national exchequers annually and it is duty of the government to protect their rights in Pakistan.

He was speaking to a public gathering hosted by Mian Waseem Rammy, vice chairman of the Overseas Pakistani Commission, Punjab near the Old Harappa Road.

Mr Sarwar said land of thousands of overseas Pakistanis had been occupied in 36 districts of Punjab. He said he had resolved 4,000 land grab cases of overseas Pakistani with the help of the district administration and police.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2019