LAHORE, Jan 18: The Punjab government in collaboration with the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan has decided to send FCPS-II trainees to serve at district headquarters hospitals for six months during their final year of training.

The first batch of postgraduate trainees will be sent to eight DHQ hospitals at former divisional headquarters from July this year. This was announced by Punjab Health Minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed while speaking at the 39th convocation of the CPSP at the Aiwan-i-Iqbal on Tuesday.

The minister said that he had consulted the District Nazims of the eight districts and they agreed to provide reasonable accommodation to the visiting fellows. He said the government would also offer enhanced stipend to the visiting fellows.

He said the programme to send FCPS-II trainees to the other districts would be done in phases. He said the government was working to upgrade facilities, including operation theatres, laboratories, labour rooms and X-ray at other DHQ hospitals.

Dr Javed said the DHQ hospitals were acutely short of specialists and were unable to provide quality healthcare facilities to masses living in the rural areas. He said the posting of specialists in the last year of training would help upgrade healthcare services in districts.

He hoped that some specialists then may decide to settle down in districts. He stressed that this initiative should also be introduced in other provinces as well. The minister also announced that the Punjab government was also creating 350 more posts for FCPS-II trainees in the province.

He said the CPSP had made a rapid progress and developed a credible examination and evaluation system that helped its fellows gain recognition as well as respect all over the world.

After personally visiting and seeing the examination and evaluation system at the CPSP, the minister said that he had asked the health secretary to adopt the system for strengthening the credibility of undergraduate medical education in the province.

He said the CPSP had made a dramatic increase of specialists in the country as compared to those available about a decade or two ago. Referring to CPSP fees, he said that he was amazed to see that the fees were significantly subsidized. He said the Punjab government would continue to help and support the CPSP.

Earlier, CPSP president Prof Dr Sultan Farooqui said the college was offering medical specialization and sub-specialization in a number of medical disciplines with 53 leading to the award of fellowship and 10 to membership.

He said the college had launched its "Conversion to IT-based medical education" by providing computer labs in all CPSP centres in 13 major cities of the country. He said the CPSP was also establishing its own Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Prof Farooqui said the college was continuously working to improve the quality of training and assessment of trainees. He said the postgraduate training programme had been structured and made competency-based.

Saying that Health for All is a national priority, he said Pakistan was still experiencing a double burden of disease. He said people were still suffering from traditional diseases that beset developing societies. He said the maternal mortality rate in Pakistan was alarming as around 30,000 women die every year of pregnancy problems and another 375,000 fall victim to its complications making the figure almost half a million women every year.

In order to combat with this challenge, he stressed that more equitable distribution of resources and healthcare in the urban and rural areas, equally affordable to all, was the need of the hour.

He said the rural communities were not only at risk but had also minimal access to health. CPSP councillor and convocation organizing committee chairman Prof Dr Sibitul Hasnain administered oath to the fellows. The health minister and the CPSP president presented medals to the position holders and diplomas to the fellows.