PESHAWAR: The health department has approved creation of 790 slots of trainee medical officers as part of its plan to increase number of specialist doctorsin the province.

`The creation of new seats will cost Rs723 million to the government. Thedecision has been taken on our proposal,` Prof Riaz Anwar Khan, the dean of Postgraduate Medical Institute, told Dawn.

He said that the province required more specialist doctors to cope with the needs of patients in different specialties. He added that with the addition of new seats, the number of slots of TMOs in the province would increase to 3,400.

Recently, the health department also increased stipend for TMOs to give incentives to doctors so that they could take postgraduate training and improve specialised care services to the people.

Prof Riaz said that that most of thedoctors wanted training in medicine and surgery because of the scope of the two major specialties. The candidates were selected for different speclaities under central induction system on the basis of their marl(s in the MBBS examinations, he added.

`Wehavestarted developinghuman resource programme to produce highly skilled professionals, who can impart training to more doctors in future,` said Prof Riaz. He said that besides main specialties, they were also givingincentives to the doctors to take up less attractive specialties for postgraduate training.

`The doctors willing to undergo postgraduate training in radiology,anesthesiology, etc will get additional allowance,` said Prof Riaz. To cope with the shortage of specialists in orthopedic, paeds surgery, neonatology, intensive care, cardiovascular surgery, cardiac surgery, etc they had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Combined Military Hospitals for training of their doctors, he added.

`We have already sent about 12 TMOs to CMH Rawalpindi where they would get training in specialties that are not available in the province, said Prof Riaz. He said that CMH had got state-of-the-art facilities where their doctors got training at the expenses of the provincial govern-ment.

The PGMI head said that the doctors were more interested in doing FCPS from Pakistan because they faced problems of accommodation and had to pay more for pursuing their specialisation abroad. `The government has been very receptive to our proposal of increasing incentives and seats for specialists,` he added.

Prof Riaz said that 80 per cent work on the construction of the skill laboratory at PGMI was completed and it would start operations within three months. `It will have an auditorium and conference room where doctors will undergo practical training,` he said.The PGMI head said that the skill lab, first of its kind in the province, was being built at a cost of Rs250 million to provide training to doctors, medical students and teachers. `In line with the latest development in the area of medical sciences, we would start imparting training to surgeons on dummies to polish their skills. So far, we don`t have any tool for practical training of surgeons,` he said.

Prof Riaz said that the skill laboratories existed only in Dow Medical College and Agha Khan University Hos pital, Karachi and PGMI Peshawar would become third institute to have the facility.