LAHORE, Jan 25: Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi said on Saturday that a consensus decision on the fate of the health institutions’ board of governors would be taken in the light of the recommendations of the commission already working on them.

He was talking to reporters after attending the 38th convocation of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan here at the Aiwan-i-Iqbal.

The chief minister said the positive aspects of the previous administrative system in the health institutions would also be adopted while taking a decision on the boards of governors.

He said a pilot project was being initiated in Rahim Yar Khan where a doctor, being offered Rs25,000 salary, a car and adequate funds, would provide health facilities in three union councils. The system would be introduced all over the Punjab after assessing the outcome of the pilot project after four months, he said.

The chief minister said it could not be believed that senior doctors were not attending their duties in government hospitals. However, action would be taken if someone was found absent, he said.

Replying to a question about the protection of gas pipeline in the province, he said the provincial government had adopted all measures to ensure its safety.

The chief minister said the government would not interfere in the byelection on a Lahore seat on Sunday and it would be as free and fair as was the byelection some times ago. The PML-Q’s defeat on Sheikh Rashid’s Rawalpindi seat proved that the recently held byelections were fair, he said.

He expressed his ignorance about the registration of cases against PML-N’s Khwaja Saad Rafique and MMA’s Amirul Azim. But while mentioning Mr Amirul Azim (who had allegedly broken into the Lahore Nazim’s official residence) he said: “One will have to face legal action after one forcibly enters one’s house.”

The chief minister said the cabinet would be expanded in the second phase in near future.

Earlier, speaking at the convocation, he regretted that the locally trained specialist doctors were no longer being given preference in recruitments.

The chief minister said such problems were originating from ambiguities and anomalies in the rules and regulations governing the recruitment of doctors. There was an urgent need to remove the anomalies so as to meet the demand of merit and justice.

“In my view, rationalization of the recruitment procedures and recognition of the due right of the general and specialist cadres is the only way to address the issue of joblessness among doctors,” he said.

He said he was convinced that there was an urgent need to standardize postgraduate medical education in the country so as to seek recognition of Pakistani universities’ degrees abroad. The best brains in the medical profession should jointly devize a package of recommendations in this regard, he said.

The chief minister mentioned some initiatives of the government for improving the health delivery system and said the district health governments had been assigned a significant role in this regard.

He urged the specialists and senior doctors to help the government implement its health reforms and properly educate and guide young doctors. “The poor who cannot afford your fees also deserve as much attention as the rich. The primary need is to set personal examples,” he said.

The chief minister said some of the problems standing in the way of the full utilization of specialist manpower in the health sector should be urgently resolved.

CPSP President Prof M Sultan Farooqui explained the aims and objectives of the college.

The chief minister, later, gave away prizes and medals to the graduates.