KARACHI, June 1: Doctors representing various associations and forums on Friday appealed to the president of Pakistan to order the Sindh government to recruit 6,500 doctors and specialists in different grades to cater to the needs of the existing and upcoming medical facilities across the province.

They also demanded immediate dislodgment of 46 BPS-19 doctors occupying BPS-20 posts at various hospitals, health administration offices and medical training institutions.

President of Pakistan Medical Association, Sindh, Dr Samrina Hashmi; Convener of Sindh Doctors’ Welfare Association, Dr Mujataba Memon; General Secretary of Peoples Doctors’ Forum, Dr Razzaq Sheikh; and vice president of Young Doctors’ Forum, Dr Tahir Lakho, spoke about the scarcity of doctors in government hospitals, salary packages for doctors and brain drain of doctors from the country at a joint press conference at the Karachi Press Club.

Dr Hashmi said that various district hospitals and trauma centres were being completed in the province and the health department would certainly need over 2,000 grade-17 doctors and specialists to make those functional. More over the government needed 3,000 doctors to fill the existing vacant posts of doctors in the province.

All these doctors should be appointed on a regular basis through the public service commission on an emergent basis, she added, saying that there was a need to appoint doctors on regular basis, not on contracts, and offer them attractive salaries, allowances and incentives to ensure their retention and the smooth working of various health facilities and institutions.

She also pointed out that nurses, paramedics and technologist would also be required for the upcoming health centres.

Talking about shortage of doctors, Dr Hashmi said that there had been no new recruitment or appointments of doctors for the last 10 years, while on the other hand in-service doctors in view of threats to their lives, low salary, appreciation of their services and promotions in time along with increased political interference and influences and facilitation of some handpicked or blue-eyed ones through backdoors, were leaving the province and the country for greener pastures.

Dr Memon said that due to very late promotion of doctors to higher grades, the number of grade-17 doctors had shrunk to 800-900, while on the other hand about 12,000 MBBS doctors were either unemployed or unwillingly serving on very nominal salaries at the private sector health units.

Not foreseeing a “prosperous life ahead”, our male youth have stopped going for medical education, Dr Memon added, saying that 85 per cent of the MBBS graduates today were females, out of which 70 per cent decide not to practice, while 20 per cent practice medicine at home-based units and only 10 per cent join the mainstream of government health units or private hospitals, which is a matter of concern and demands a serious review of the situation.