KARACHI, June 2: The Sindh government has decided to stop sending doctors on deputation for postgraduate medical education and training on the grounds that it affects working of the hospitals where they are posted.

This was stated by provincial Minister for Health Syed Sardar Ahmad who inaugurated a therapeutic feeding centre at the National Institute of Child Health on Saturday.

The minister said that the Sindh chief minister had agreed to the proposal put forward by the health department that the doctors employed by the department should now be granted ‘leave without pay’ for undertaking postgraduate education or training.

Pointing out that a shortage of doctors in government hospitals, particularly those located in remote and rural areas, was becoming a serious issue, the minister noted that about 30 per cent of the recently recruited 761 doctors had been allowed to undertake such studies and training on a deputation basis, affecting the crisis-hit health care units across the province.

He said that the doctors posted in remote and rural areas opted for their advance education and training in Hyderabad, Karachi, Larkana and Nawabshah, adding that the drawback of this trend was a financial loss to the Sindh government as these doctors continued to draw their salaries without serving at their original place of posting.

Defending the government’s decision, the minister clarified that while being on leave without pay, the doctors would continue to receive their monthly stipend during the training period. The stipend, he added, was being raised from Rs6,000 to Rs10,000 in the new fiscal.

Mr Ahmad told the audience that healthcare units in rural areas needed special attention and suggested that inspection teams, involving professionals from NGOs and other sectors, be formed to look after such facilities.

He also pointed out that about 250 Basic Health Unites (BHUs) and Rural Health Centres (RHCs) and other health facilities were constructed across the province but they were lying inactive for want of funds needed for the provision of furniture, fixtures and meeting other expenditures concerning doctors and paramedical staff.

“Now the government has decided to provide special grants to make such healthcare units functional but only for a period of three years after which most of these facilities will have to be maintained by the district government concerned,” he added.

Agreeing to a suggestion from NICH Director Prof Afroze Ramzan, the minister said that efforts would be made to upgrade the Government Hospital for Children, North Karachi, as a fully-fledged child health institute on the pattern of the NICH. He also laid emphasis on improving the paediatric facility at the Civil Hospital Karachi.

Later, talking to newsmen, the health minister said that his department would advertise vacancies of about 400 doctors and more than 200 nurses in the newspapers soon. The jobs would be offered on a three-year contract basis, he added.