PESHAWAR, Jan 31: Graduating doctors leave the province as well as the country for better prospects — an act that is in conflict with the oath they take at the time of admission to medical colleges, in which they promise to serve the ailing humanity.

Records showed that 10,800 doctors had completed their MBBS from the Khyber Medical College (KMC) in Peshawar since its inception in 1954-55, but at present only 5,000 doctors were serving in various health facilities in the province. Most of the doctors have settled abroad after specialising in various medical sciences.

About 5 per cent of them passed the Central Superior Service exams and were serving on lucrative posts in customs, income tax and police departments.

Of the total qualified doctors 7,800 were men while 3,000 were women. But only 1,200 women had taken up government employment.

Officials at the KMC told this correspondent that most of the women doctors got married after graduation, becoming simple housewives. Most of the health facilities desperately needed women doctors and the government had even offered extraordinary incentives to women doctors to serve in some remote areas but they were not willing to join service.

He said that 50 per cent of the women doctors, who were serving at the government-run health facilities, was because their husbands were also doctors.

More than 475 of the 975 dental surgeons who graduated from the Khyber College of Dentistry (KCD) had gone abroad.

Similarly, of the 357 women who had done their BDS, only a 100 worked as dental surgeons, while the rest of them had either become housewives or were abroad.

The situation with regard to specialist doctors is also grim. According to available statistics, there were 2,364 male specialist doctors in the province, but the province had hardly employed 1,200 of them at the moment. Most of those who were working in the province had local degrees or diplomas, while the bulk of those who had degrees from abroad had either not come back or had left the country after coming back.

According to official figures, the province had 397 female specialist doctors, but only 120 of them were still working. Similarly, of the 55 specialist dental surgeons, only 25 were serving in government-run hospitals, while the rest of them were abroad.

The province had eight female specialists in dentistry but half of them were abroad, record showed.