Maintaining that it was a “colossal wastage” of resources on preparing doctors if they migrate to other countries, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday asked them to work in the State where their services were far more required.
Badal expressed deep concern over the growing trend of “brain drain” among doctors and specialists while addressing medical students on the ninth convocation of Patiala’s Government Medical College on Wednesday.
“Medical students should serve the State and its people zealously instead of going abroad in search of ‘green pastures,” said Badal. Urging the students to serve in rural and difficult areas like border, Badal said that their services were far more needed here and “they would derive lot of satisfaction while serving the needy and underprivileged sections of society”.
The veteran Akali leader said that it was the need of the hour to reverse the trend of “brain drain” in which the doctors were emotionally swayed to settle abroad for the sake of name and fame.
The Chief Minister said that setting up of Homi Bhabha Cancer Treatment and Research Center at Mullanpur (New Chandigarh) under the auspices of Tata Memorial Cancer Institute, Mumbai, would help the State in emerging as a major hub of Super Speciality medical care.
Badal said the State Government had declared a war on drugs and huge money was being spent on establishment of drug de-addiction centers and rehabilitation centres for drug addicts across the State.
“The Government has already sanctioned plenty of funds for the recruitment of doctors, psychiatrists and paramedics to run these institutions efficiently besides providing free medicines to the patients,” he said.
The State Government is fully seized with the problem of growing unemployment and the only solution to tackle this menace, especially among the college or school drop outs, was to impart skill training in different fields to enable them to earn their livelihood, Badal said. He said that the state government has set a target of training about one lakh youth annually under various skill development programmes to cater the needs of local industry.
Badal also mentioned that the state government has prepared a detailed programme to impart skill training in paramedics and 32 other related courses across the state.
Chief Minister also announced a cash award of Rs one lakh each for 11 students who were honored with gold medals for outstanding academic performance in different streams and handed a cheque of Rs 11 lakh to the college principal Dr KD Singh.