Officials from Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health and Defense and Aviation are on their way to lure doctors in Punjab on a recruitment spree, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Per details, the Saudi ministries y of Health and the ministry of Defence and Aviation are going to visit Pakistan later this month to recruit doctors for various categories and specialisations including anesthesia, emergency, ICU, internal medicine, health education and pediatrics. Overseas Employment Corporation from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, government of Pakistan has notified the arrival of Saudi officials and has sought applications from interested candidates. Even last year, the Saudi government hired around 2,000 doctors from Pakistan with attractive “perks and privileges” and causing a drastic vacuum in the faculty of teaching institutions and hospitals. Various teaching hospitals in the provincial metropolitan, to date, lack crucial faculty and specialists vital to run teaching institutions and hospitals.
Per further details, around 20 vacancies in the prestigious King Edward Medical University, in Children’s Hospital are empty, while the situation is worse in the periphery.
Pakistan YDA General Secretary Dr Salman Kazmi said, “The only solution is to further increase the salaries of doctors and bring it at par with the government of India…otherwise the doctors will keep fleeing…without human resource hospitals cannot run…all good doctors will go abroad and only doctors with degrees from China and Russia will remain here for Pakistani public…it is the responsibility of the government to provide free education to people and hence the government should not give it as an excuse for not increasing salaries.”
He further said the Saudi government offered around 45000 riyals to a senior professor with free meals and home and two yearly return tickets. “Although they work a lot, but the salary is unmatchable and hence doctors prefer to go abroad,” he added.
Better salary packages has been a long standing demand of doctors and last year the doctors shut the province’s public health facilities for over a month over the contentious issue. The Punjab government finally accepted their demands and announced Rs 5 billion package for them. However, this year again doctors are all set to flee again for better packages which the Pakistani government might never become able to match.
However, Allama Iqbal Medical College Principal Professor Javaid Akram dispelled the impression that it was a monitory issue. “Pay packages are a very minor issue, it is about job satisfaction and recognition which includes a service structure and other things…the government should devise a policy to consider doctors an asset and to keep them otherwise the situation will keep deteriorating…no one consulted us regarding these issue when we know the problem and we can provide with the solutions as well,” he added.
I personally think this is good. We need the foreign exchange & these doctors deserve the salary offered to them. We need to provide better packages to them to keep them here.
Welcome to Pakistan,where Pakistani elite first handed over Education in the hands of Saudi Arabia who funded and opened MAR-RASSAS all over Pakistan and injected religious fanaticism,now they are after our doctors, tomorrow they will take our ARMY,POLICE,ENGINEERS,while they deport their terrorists to our borders,but who cares,if NAWAZ SHARIF,ZARDARI OR SHABAZ gets sick they can go to LONDON,DUBAI OR AMERICA,screw the poor who cant afford doctors or die cause of expired medicines.
i had been working in pakistan for 3 years and i had to perform 24 hours call 3 time per week along withe the routine duties. i struggled too much for having one room in the doctors hostel . then i was transferred to a remote tribal area where i had to work as a g.p ( i am a trained plastic and reconstructive surgeon). i requested to keep me in the plastic surgery department in the teaching hospital where i could be more usefull but they laughed at me. then i decided to go to KSA with a broken heart . now i am in plastic surgery department and having 7 times more pay and a very good accomodation and a car. i am supporting all my family with the grace of Allah. i would still love to return to come to my country if the government gives me the opportunity to work in my own specialty. i swear to Allah , i love my homeland more then any other country but our country is infested with the worse kind of system….may Allah give us freedom from the bad system.
This is not limited to health profession only, Pakistan is facing a brain drain since many years. When talent and skills are valued properly somewhere else with respect, professionals will leave for better environment for work and life. We are looking at symptoms here, we need to address the root cause of this.
Create better job opportunities and give them respect, they will be ready to stay and apply skills even with less pay compared to western world, its not easy to leave homeland for anyone!
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