A Punjab government committee formed by the chief minister to consider the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s proposal for reserving 50 per cent seats in medical colleges for boys has rejected the suggestion, saying it will amount to gender discrimination.
The number of boys in medical colleges in the Punjab is currently around 32 per cent.
The committee comprises Adviser to Chief Minister on Health Khawaja Salman Rafique, principals of Punjab Medical College, Faisalabad; Rawalpindi Medical College; Nishtar Medical College ,Multan; Quaid-i-Azam Medical College, Bahawalpur; Allama Iqbal Medical College, Lahore; Services Institute of Medical Sciences, Lahore; Shaikh Zayed Medical College, Rahim Yar Khan; and Fatima Jinnah Medical College, Lahore.
A senior Health Department official said a committee meeting held the other day was told that the Supreme Court had abolished the 60:40 gender-based quota for medical colleges in 1991. He said the PMDC’s proposals contravened the spirit of Supreme Court’s verdict. He said that the new admission focusing on merit alone, had been announced in June and admissions to medical colleges had begun under the policy. The PMDC proposal had come too late and could therefore not be implemented, the official said.
Another participant of the meeting said Pakistan was a signatory to the United Nations Charter that prohibited discrimination based on gender. “Reserving 50 per cent seats for men fell in that category,” he said.
An official from the Health Department said the committee’s recommendation would be sent to the chief minister as a summary. The Ministry of National Health Services will be asked to take up the matter with the PMDC. The Health Department will also write a letter to the PMDC in this regard.
PMDC’s official data shows there are currently 142,017 registered medical practitioners in Pakistan. Of them, 77,551 are men and 64,466 are women. There are 13,479 dentists practicing in Pakistan, 5,369 of them men and 8,110 women.
“The ratio of women practicing medicine is markedly lower than their share in medical college admissions. That does not mean we should restrict their admissions. We should provide women incentives and an environment conducive to work so they practice medicine rather than staying home,” said the principal of a public medical college.