Governor urges medical varsities to help improve health status

PESHAWAR: Governor Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan Thursday urged the medical universities to play a role in spreading knowledge, managing better utilisation of resources and alleviating poverty to improve the health status.
The governor, who is also chancellor of all the public sector universities, was addressing the 1st convocation of the Khyber Medical University (KMU). He said the country in general and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in particular was facing challenges, especially in health sector, as people were going through serious problems.
Besides KMU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Mohammad Hafeezullah faculty members, vice-chancellors, principals of the public sector universities and public and private medical colleges, students and their parents also attended the convocation.
The governor said he was delighted to see achievements of the KMU in a short period since its establishment in 2007 and its contribution towards improvement of the basic medical sciences. Sardar Mahtab said it was very encouraging to note that the KMU even in its budding phase had grown so rapidly to have seven constituent and 28 affiliated institutes, imparting quality education to undergraduate and postgraduate students in various disciplines of medical, nursing, paramedics, physiotherapy and medical education.
He said the KMU being the only public sector medical university in the province had the huge responsibility of coming up to the expectations of the government, public, policy makers, and patients.
The governor also urged the medical graduates to create a happy and healthy world. Earlier, the chief guest awarded degrees to 188 graduates from all the KMU basic sciences institutions and gold medals to 119 graduates.
In overall, a medical graduate Khush Bakht received 15 gold medals while Syed Hashim Ali Shah got nine gold medals. Similarly, Nargis Jabeen and Shumaila got six gold medals each and Ambar Kazmi received three gold medals.
The governor also presented KMU souvenirs to 23 personalities for their contributions to the KMU. KMU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Hafizullah in his speech threw light on the achievements of the university and its future objectives.
He also identified the postgraduate fields of basic medical sciences in which the university was gaining successes and vowed to put increased share in the reduction of health-related issues. The vice-chancellor said soon the KMU would be able to award PhD degrees in many basic medical science subjects.
Prof Dr Hafizullah said the university endeavours to excel by enhancing access, quality and relevance and KMU in its journey of seven years tried to identify gaps in the field of health and then fill those after extensive consultation and planning.
He said the KMU was the first in the province to establish Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation - starting four years bachelors and then converting it into five years doctorate. Prof Hafizullah said public health had remained a neglected field, therefore, the KMU established Institute of Public Health and Social Sciences, which has been offering MPH in three specialties and started MS in biostatistics and epidemiology.
He said the number of the KMU students in seven years had increased steadily from 102 in 2008-9 to 2216, finances kept under close scrutiny and receipts increased from Rs165 million in 2008 to Rs865million last year and expenditure went up from Rs109 million to Rs753 million, last year.