The committee was chaired by 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, attended the meeting. The vice chancellor of University of Health Sciences, a representative of King Edward Medical University, the health secretary, the additional health secretary (technical), the additional chief secretary and Law Department officials were also present.

A senior Health Department official said participants of the meeting were 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. 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.

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. “We want to take all stakeholders on board,” he said. 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.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2014.