LAHORE: Punjab is recruiting surgeons from London, Toronto and the Gulf to operate on patients in public hospitals who cannot afford private care, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz confirmed Thursday, unveiling a programme that could fundamentally reshape how 110 million Pakistanis access specialist medicine.
Diaspora Doctor Locum Programme
The Diaspora Doctor Locum Programme (DDLP) will deploy overseas Pakistani and foreign specialist doctors across 12 public hospitals in Punjab on short-term assignments. Each visiting surgeon can perform up to eight advanced procedures per posting.
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The province sets the minimum deployment at 15 days, long enough to run an operating list but short enough not to disrupt a specialist’s career abroad.
Foreign Specialists Arrive
The eligibility bar sits high by design. Applicants must hold postgraduate qualifications, complete at least three years of overseas fellowship training, and carry a valid fitness certificate. Pakistani passport holders and foreign nationals both qualify an unusually open door for a Pakistani government scheme.
A dedicated online portal will manage everything from credential verification to payment, with a live dashboard already demonstrated to the chief minister at Thursday’s Specialised Healthcare Department meeting. Maryam Nawaz directed authorities to make the system fully transparent before the first doctor lands.
“Bringing the best human resources to Punjab is my mission,” she told the meeting, promising competitive financial packages for participating doctors and nurses.
Training Local Doctors
The training obligation embedded in the programme separates it from cosmetic diaspora-engagement exercises. Every foreign specialist must train local healthcare professionals during their posting a clause that, if enforced rigorously, could leave Punjab’s public hospitals permanently better equipped long after the visiting doctors fly home. The chief minister also ordered a parallel locum scheme for nurses, where shortages in public wards cause daily crises that no amount of infrastructure spending fixes alone.
The DDLP lands against a backdrop of three major hospital inaugurations Punjab has locked in for this summer. The Nawaz Sharif Institute of Cardiology in Sargodha opens July 15 construction is complete and the chief minister signed off on the date Thursday after watching a documentary on the facility. The Nawaz Sharif Institute of Cancer Treatment and Research follows on July 31, once Packages A and B wrap up construction. Recruitment at the Jinnah Institute of Cardiology in Lahore must finish by July 10, clearing the way for its August 15 opening.
Three flagship hospitals in 31 days. The government is betting its healthcare credibility on that timeline holding.
Pakistan loses thousands of trained specialists every year to better salaries and working conditions abroad. The DDLP does not fight that tide it redirects it. Rather than demanding doctors choose between Pakistan and their careers, it asks for 15 days and a scalpel.
Whether the portal delivers on its transparency promises, whether packages prove attractive enough against Gulf or NHS salaries, and whether the training mandate produces measurable outcomes those questions will define whether DDLP becomes a genuine public health intervention or another announcement that dissolves between press conferences. Punjab’s poorest patients are already waiting for the answer.
