LAHORE: The minister for specialised healthcare and medical education says work will be started for establishing a separate council for allied health professionals on the pattern of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC).

Khwaja Salman Rafique was addressing the first convocation of the Children`s Hospital and Institute of Child Health`s Allied Health Sciences School at a local hotel on Thursday.

The minister said a lot of opportunities for allie d health professionals were available in both the specialized healthcare and medical education as well as primary and secondary healthcare departments.

More opportunities of services for highly-qualified human resource would be created by the expansion of the health sector, he said.Earlier, Children Hospital and Institute of Child Health Dean Prof Masood Sadiq said in his welcome address that master`s degree programmes for allied health professionals would soon be started.

He said the country had been facing anacute shortage of trained human resource and the Children`s Hospital and Institute of Child Health had been providing training to the health professionals to hllthe gap.

Prof Sadiq said that so far 850 allied health professionals had completed their education from this Institute and serving within the country and abroad. He said the Institute of Child Health would soon start master`s degree courses.

Later, degrees were distributed among the 350 graduates and 24 medals and 125 certificates were awarded to the students showing outstanding performance.

ORIENTATION CEREMONY: Former principal of AmeeruddinMedical College Prof Tariq Salahuddin has announced a Rs100,000 grant for the library of the college.

He was addressing the Orientation Ceremony for the sixth batch of students for the college here on Thursday. Prof Tariq said the Ameeruddin Medical College had secured remarkable position within minimum time.

Principal Prof Ghias-un-Nabi Tayyab said the College offered best medical education that`s why a number of students from other countries also take pride in getting admission here. He said the College was being run under the academic supervision of the PostGraduate Medical Institute.

The College offers one of the best training facilities to the students as it is attached with the Lahore General Hospital having more than 1000 beds.

Later, the students took part in the `White Coat Ceremony`.