RAWALPINDI, Nov 28: The Young Doctors Association (YDA) has condemned the Punjab government’s decision to impose ban on offering medical training facilities to foreign and private medical colleges’ graduates at the hospitals across the province.

The Punjab health department has issued a notification in which foreign qualified medical graduates and graduates from private medical colleges have been disallowed to apply for house jobs or post-graduate training courses in the hospitals of Punjab.

The decision has created an uproar and disappointment among young medical graduates that has put their carrier at stake and they raised their concerns here on Friday over the policy. They said the policy would ruin the career of many a doctor.

Chief coordinator YDA at the Benazir Bhutto hospital (BBH) Dr Sherin M K Yousafzai said in a statement that the next step of Punjab government would be to expel the trainee doctors from all government hospitals and threatened to resist any move against the doctors.

“We have spent a lot of money on our medical careers and studied for five years in private medical colleges registered with the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC). How can the government question our qualifications?” Dr Yousafzai asked.

He regretted that the government had mentioned in the notification that young doctors had been taken into confidence before issuing the order and said there was not a single office-bearer of the YDA present in the meeting with the chief minister.

He threatened that young doctors would take to the streets and launch a province-wide campaign against the Punjab chief minister in case he failed to revoke the “cruel order”, adding that there was no such policy in other three provinces of the country.