WITH one stroke of pen the government strikes down the sole regulator of the doctors of Pakistan the PMDC. It seems like the government is either in a hurry to jeopardize the medical fraternity or is it trying to deepen the damage it has done in KP and Punjab regarding the doctors.
It appears that who ever is calling the shots has absolutely no idea of the damage they have done and what disaster is next to come. The sealing of the PMDC office on Sunday has risen severe questions about persons behind these actions ,as it seems that the same people who were part of the previous council as trying to get hold of some important data regarding the inspections which has risen doubt about the motive behind the so called selected inspections.
Surprisingly those colleges which were in some sort of litigation where obliged in a big way and given high marks which is quite opposite to the ground reality. When I came to know about the results and subsequent meetings of the health task force which Ali Raza was leading has risen skepticism and suspicion on what is going on. This ordinance has validated that a deal has been stuck between the Burki group and some members of the PAMI. When I went through the minutes of the PAMI I couldn’t believe that efforts are being made to undo what the honorable supreme court had done through central admission tests and capping the Fees. Not only this but they intead to remove the restrictions on the faculty so that the private medical colleges can hire and fire and keep sub standard faculty on their wilms and wishes.
Not only are these measures going to play havoc with the product being made but also would be disastrous to the whole nation at large in coming times. Just to remind that central admission was introduced because of the compliants that admissions were being done through under hand deals and surprisingly most of them were the ones seen with the health task force meeting at Lahore.
Last council nominations were disastrous in its self and when you go through the minutes of the council meetings you would realize who was calling the shots. Last council went beyond the mandate to enforce a very strange admission policy which at last was struck down by the Honorable Lahore High court. The architect behind the admission was Ali Raza and even when the 2019 Ordinance was disapproved a letter was sent out from registrar office in early September to create a sort of unrest and confusion among the future of our country. One of the member Amir Bilal gathered lot of controversy not only regarding his Professor ship but also regarding his honorary degree . They both were targeted for taking sides with some of the medical colleges specially Rawal Institute which was shifted to a rented building five days before the inspection and which to my knowledge has still not paid the rent. The building holds engineering college in its first two floors and medical college in its upper two floors. Despite reports of presenting dubious balance sheets the college secured high marks making these inspections all more controversial.
By promulgating another ordinance regarding the PMDC by just changing the name , Government has gone against the Supreme Courts very detailed judgment of 2018 and taken a nose dive in international recognition and accredation. And it is learnt that the whole exercise is being done to control the MTI fall back and threaten the doctors with cancelling their registration if they don’t fall in line.
