PESHAWAR: Increase in admission quota for residents of tribal districts in public sector medical and dental colleges in the country is not going to benefit the dwellers of the area as during the past 60 years those, who have become doctors on the quota, haven’t served their local people, which is the main purpose of allocation of the reserved seats, according to sources.

In December 2019, Pakistan Medical Commission doubled the number of reserved seats for the students of former Fata from 195 to 390 in medical and dental schools as per decision of the federal cabinet in 2017.

However, experts said that the mechanism of reserved seats was introduced for tribal areas in 1960s to provide medical services to the local people.

They said that reserved seats were allocated to tribal students because it was believed that they could not compete with students of settled districts. It was decided that the students becoming doctors on the reserved seats would be posted in their native health facilities, they added.

According to experts, shortage of doctors, both male and female, persists in tribal districts and patients are being transported outside for minor ailments because the tribal doctors don’t work there.

Experts say students becoming doctors on basis of quota should be posted to native areas

Seven tribal districts have 9,000 employees in 979 health facilities. Of the sanctioned 108 posts of specialists, 80 are vacant. More than half of 50 sanctioned positions of women medical officers are also unfilled.

Of the reserved seats, 136 are in KP’s 14 public sector medical and dental colleges while 78 are in other provinces. The basic objective to allocate reserved seats, more than 50 per tribal district, was meant to strengthen healthcare in tribal districts inhabited by five million people, said experts.

Medical educationists said that the incentive was being misused as 90 per cent people got admission on the domicile of former Fata but they didn’t study there.

They said that the 10 per cent quota was meant for the students doing FSc from institutions located inside tribal districts.

The province has 1,500 seats including 1,202 in medical colleges and 180 in dental colleges of which 922 are for open merit, 135 for general self-finance, 43 for foreign self-finance, 233 are federal seats, 350 for tribal districts, 12 for Afghan national and others. It shows that more than 550 seats are filled through quota system.

During the current academic session, according to the director of admissions of Khyber Medical University, the first position in tribal districts started with aggregate merit score of 89.273 and the last candidate admitted on reserved seat got a score of 64.57.

In public sector open merit, first candidate admitted with a merit score of 91.568 and the last candidate with a merit score of 81.273.

It shows the toughest contest among the 30.5 million dwellers of settled districts.

The educationists say that number of seats for open merit increases only when new colleges are established in public sector but increase in reserved seats has been doubled for tribal districts to produce medical graduates and deploy them to work in their areas of domicile.

Health authorities on numerous occasions have asked the government to ensure that doctors from tribal districts are posted in their native hospitals but such requests have fallen on deaf ears.

According to rough estimate, more than 8,000 students have sought admission in medical and dental colleges on the basis of tribal domicile since allocation of quota back in sixties. They also received Rs12, 000 per year during the five year studies.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2020