ISLAMABAD: Following criticism of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s (PMDC) decision of imposing a gender quota in medical colleges, the council has decided to seek advice from the Supreme Court.

Last month the PMDC implemented a 50 per cent male and 50 per cent female quota in admissions. However applications started pouring in from all over the country against the decision.

PMDC President Prof Dr Masood Hameed, while talking to media, said at the moment Pakistan had a total of 157,081 medical dental practitioners and almost 50 per cent were female.

Know more: 50pc of female doctors never work after graduation

However he explained that only 50 per cent of women doctors are working.

“The other 50 per cent are in the country but are not working at any hospital or clinic. There are around 50,000 to 60,000 medical practitioners against 600,000 needed to fulfill the needs of the population,” he said.

“Pakistan is training around 14,000 doctors per year out of which 70 per cent are female. It is feared that since almost 50 per cent of the female medical students would not work so a proposal was made for a separate merit list to be made for male and female medical students,” he said

He added that as PMDC is the regulatory body for medical and dental education in Pakistan, the decision was made in national interest.

Council facing opposition to decision to have 50pc quotas for men and women who apply for admission to medical institutions

He said most primary and secondary health care units in both private and public sector were deprived of doctors.

A similar situation is faced by the Pakistan Army Medical Corps where every year a number of female doctors are inducted who do not opt to work in remote areas.

Registrar PMDC Dr Amjad Mehmood, while talking to Dawn, said although over 70 per cent of students admitted to medical colleges were female, only 17 to 20 per cent of them go for postgraduate education.

“Moreover, majority of women doctors do not work so an amount of over Rs2 million spent on them by the government goes to waste. It is in the better interest of the country to make separate merit lists for male and female medical students,” he said.

Donation policy of medical colleges PMDC President Prof Dr Masood Hameed has called the heads of all private medical dental colleges of Hazara Division to appear before the PMDC disciplinary committee for fleecing money from people in the form of donations.

According to an official statement, PMDC learnt that students are being asked to contribute Rs2 million in the form of donations, despite being on the merit list.

As per PMDC rules medical and dental colleges are allowed to charge around Rs750,000 and no private medical/dental college is allowed to take donation from the students.

The president said if any private medical or dental college asks parents or students to facilitate the college in the form of donation they should contact PMDC.

He said it had also been brought to PMDC’s attention that private medical colleges are not paying stipend to many doctors/dentists doing residency at their hospitals.

He added that doctors should contact the PMDC if they are not being paid for their residency.

The PMDC has directed medical and dental colleges all over Pakistan to submit pay slips of those doing residency otherwise strict action would be taken against them as per rules.

Published in Dawn, November 1st , 2014