KARACHI, Sept 18: The Sindh health department on Tuesday notified a new postgraduate training policy under which doctors employed at government hospitals and health centres will not be allowed any in-service deputation for higher education.

According to a notification issued by the department, the doctors pursuing postgraduate studies will be granted leave without pay and a Rs12,000 stipend.

It was further said that doctors who had been enrolled for studies would be allowed leave without pay instead of an in-service deputation. The doctors on study leave will keep on contributing all deductions as required under the law for the period of leave.

Only those doctors who fulfil the prescribed requirements as laid down by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) as well as the CPSP for respective postgraduate training will be entitled for such leave.

A source in the provincial health department said that the decision to stop sending doctors on deputation for postgraduate medical education and training was taken on the grounds that it affected the working of hospitals where these doctors were originally posted.

The provincial health minister is also of the view that a shortage of doctors in government hospitals particularly those located in remote and rural areas is becoming a serious issue.

Speaking at a function in June 2007, Sindh Health Minister Syed Sardar Ahmad had remarked that a considerable number of recently recruited 761 doctors had been allowed to undertake postgraduate studies and training on a deputation basis, which in return brought a financial loss to the government as the doctors in question continued to draw their salaries without serving at their original places of posting, most of which were crisis-hit health care units.

Under the new policy, now the health care centres would be in a position to get another doctor on temporary basis against a vacant post due to the deputation of a doctor to a teaching hospital for the purpose of higher education, the source added.

The government’s communication said that recruitment on a contract basis would be made against the posts fallen vacant in consequence to granting leave without pay to doctors proceeding for postgraduate programmes. The contract period of the hired doctors would be extended till the rejoining of the doctor on leave to the health department, it added.

Talking to Dawn on Tuesday, the health minister said that the new training policy would be applicable to about 350 doctors who had a standing of two years or less service in the department and had been allowed to undertake the postgraduate education would compulsorily be required to go on leave without pay. He said that the Sindh government doctors seeking postgraduate training in future would also have to follow the new policy.

Since the notification had been announced, exercise for appointment of doctors on a contract basis at hospitals and health care units, which had sent their doctors on deputation for postgraduate training, would begin in a couple of days, the minister said.

In the meantime, according to a handout of the Sindh government, doctors can undergo postgraduate training as in-service candidates at teaching hospitals for the forthcoming session, ie 2007 of the Dow University of Health Sciences and 2008 of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, as fellow of College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan and postgraduate programmes of Basic, Applied and Emerging Sciences related of medicine.