LAHORE: The Punjab government has given a three-year waiver after the superannuation age for the appointment of medical teachers in order to address acute shortage of senior doctors in medical colleges.

The incentive will be applicable to four medical colleges to start with.

The chief minister has approved a summary sent by the health department and directed it to fill the vacant positions under the new arrangement as soon as possible.

The development has come in the light of the recent unprecedented actions taken by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) particularly against the public medical colleges of Punjab due to dearth of the faculty. Thepersistentshortage ofseniorfaculty at the government teaching hospitals has brought many of these facilities to the verge of closure.

The Punjab government had to face embarrassment when the Council recently recommended closure of the Sahiwal Medical College, stopped admissions to the Shaikh Zayed Medical and Dental College, Lahore, and the Shaikh Zayed Medical College of Rahim Yar Khan, and put the Gujranwala Medical College in the list of `B` category mainly due to persistent shortage ofthe teachingfaculty.

The government took up the issue with the PMDC to withdraw its actions but all efforts remained futile. `On finding the council unmoved, the Punjab government constituted a committee which was headed by the chief secretary to fur-nish solution,` a senior official told Dawn on Wednesday.

He said the secretaries of the health, law and regulations wing were made members of the committee which in its report had recommended to the government to increase the age limit to 63 years for the professors to fill the vacant positions. It had also proposed to fill all other vacant positions from senior registrar to the associate professors on an ad hoc basis.

The chief minister accorded approval to materialise this new scheme and directed the health department to implement it, the official said. Initially, he said, the waiver had been granted only for the four new medical colleges in Sahiwal, DG Khan, Sialkot and Gujranwala.

`All the postings will be done on an ad hoc basis and the healthdepartment has issued instructions to the medical colleges to advertise the positions in accordance with the decision of the Punjab government,` said the official.

Health Secretary Jawad Rafique Malik confirmed the development, saying the government had also approved an alternate plan to address this particular issue. `If the vacant positions remained unfilled despite three-year age relaxation, a special financial incentive will be introduced to attract the candidates,` he said.

The secretary said the shortage of faculty particularly in the basic sciences subject had put the future of medical students at stake. He said the health department had introduced many other proposals to address this issue but could not reach the target due to certain reasons.