PESHAWAR, Feb 8: NWFP Senior Minister Sirajul Haq has extolled the medical graduates to serve the ailing humanity with honesty and devotion to earn the blessings of Allah.

Speaking as a chief guest at the convocation of the Khyber Medical College (KMC) on Saturday, Mr Haq said being Muslims, the doctors should provide both physical and spiritual treatment to the patients.

“The doctors should not use their degrees to attain only economic prosperity, but they also need to win pleasure of God by serving the poor people,” said Mr Haq, adding that it was of paramount importance for the doctors to develop in their hearts the fear of God and love for humanity.

He also congratulated the newly-inducted medical graduates of the two sessions, 1999 and 2000, who were awarded degrees.

Nausheen Javid was declared best graduate for the 1999 and Shumaila Hadi received the best graduate gold medal for 2000. About 400 medical graduates were awarded degrees by the senior minister.

Mr Haq said the MMA government “has decided to do away with the VIP culture” and had curtailed non-development expenditure to divert the amount to health and education sectors. The government functionaries, he said, could not afford luxurious lifestyle, as the province was already teetering under the heavy debt of Rs74 billion.

He further said that efforts would be made to give the status of medical university to the KMC.

Earlier, KMC principal Prof Dr Yasmeen Ashfaq said numerous medical colleges had been established in the province in the past several years which “has increased the burden on the KMC for conduct of their examinations.” The college had very busy schedule of its examinations and the burden of other college affects its own performance, which often leads to delay in examinations.

Referring to the shortage of accommodation at the lone girls’ hostel, she demanded that rooms be constructed at the hostel to solve the boarding problem faced by the students. About the buses of the college, she said these were in bad condition, and demanded that new buses be allotted to the college to facilitate the students and the teachers.

Dr Yasmeen also said that no funds had been released for repair work since last one year and the college, its hostels and official residences needed repair.