Dr Abdul Razak Shaikh
THE Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) was a Statutory Regulatory Authority that maintains the official register of medical and dental practitioners in Pakistan. Its main function is to establish a uniform minimum standard of basic and higher qualifications in medicine and dentistry throughout the country by controlling entry to the Council’s register and suspending or removing members when necessary. The Council also sets the education standards for medical and dental institutions in Pakistan along with the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. All medical and dental practitioners and students are required to register with Council to legally practise medicine and dentistry in Pakistan. The guidelines for registration are outlined under “Chapter IX, Pakistan Registration of Medical and Dental Practitioners Regulations, 2008.
President Dr Arif Alvi has promulgated an Ordinance which has left the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) dissolved and paved the way for the establishment of a new organization namely Pakistan Medial Commission (PMC). The PMC will be run by a nine-member body and the Head of the Commission would be called the President. The PMDC dissolution and the subsequent issuance of the PMC Ordinance 2019 means that 220-employees of the Council find themselves jobless, while medical students now face the prospect of having to sit the proposed National Licensing Examination (NLE) to practise as medical professionals upon completion of their MBBS or BDS degrees. But the more troubling aspect of the dissolution is that those private medical institutions will now apparently have a free hand in governing their affairs.
The Ordinance absolves all private medical institutions of any responsibility towards regulatory statues. Earlier, the PMDC cupped the fee for private colleges and a certain standard of education and medical training had to be maintained. However, the new move appeases the money-making mentality of private medical colleges. However, the representative bodies of doctors, Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), Peoples Doctors Forum (PDF) Sindh, PIMA and Young Doctors Association (YDA) of Punjab has termed decision undemocratic and appealed to political parties to reject presidential ordinance. Issuance of Ordinance on Sunday sparks panic among doctors
Hours later a statement was issued by the ministry of NHS stating that the President has signed a new ordinance titled ‘Pakistan Medical Commission Ordinance, 2019’ by virtue of which a new era will begin with reference to regulation and control of the medical profession by establishing a uniform minimum standard of medical education and training and recognition of qualifications in medicine and dentistry. Implementation of new Ordinance requires the dissolution of the current PMDC. The govt of Pakistan hence on Sunday directed temporary shutting down of the offices of Council. This would ensure the protection of essential records and assets of PMDC. The offices will remain shut for one week. PMC shall be a body corporate consisting of (i) The Medical and Dental Council; (ii) The National Medical and Dental Academic Board and (iii) National Medical Authority, which will act as a Secretariat of the Commission.
The government of Pakistan has acted immediately to protect the extremely important records relating to licensing and registration of all medical and dental practitioners in Pakistan as well as the records of medical and dental educational institutions in view of the approval of the new Pakistan Medical Commission Ordinance. The new Medical Commission is expected to start operations within a week. The inconvenience caused to practitioners and others is regretted. However, it was essential to protect the original records and assets of PMDC being the government’s priority and responsibility. In order to ensure that no inconvenience is caused to ongoing medical and dental admissions, the Ministry of NHS will be taking necessary steps immediately for the supervision and overseeing the admissions process to ensure it is properly completed. The presidential ambush that dissolved the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council through an ordinance on Sunday and replaced it with Pakistan Medical Commission, is baffling, to say the least. Even if the intention was honest, The Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Health has claimed that the change has been made to modernize the country’s medical education regime. The route was taken by the government to bypass the elected parliament on the issue has made the entire exercise controversial.
The government had failed to push through the Senate a similar law, the PMDC Ordinance 2019. To deal with issues related to medical colleges, attached hospitals and health professionals earlier this year because of stern resistance from the opposition parties enjoying a majority in the upper house. But it would have been much better for the government to have made a serious attempt to take the opposition parties into confidence on its proposals, instead of choosing the less-favoured path of resorting to presidential ordinances. Let alone talking to the opposition parties, the writers of the new law did not even consult the management of the public medical institutions, bodies representing doctors and other stakeholders before unilaterally and secretly implementing the decision. The haste was shown by the government is bringing in Ordinance without wider consultation gives credence to allegations that the step had been taken in connivance with the management of private medical institutions and to please their politically influential owners.
This Ordinance is totally against the decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan that election will be under the application of rules and law and all the provinces will be represented. All the private medical colleges will work under PMDC and fees will be charged as per rules. In new ordinance, private Medical Colleges have given full powers of their accreditation and allow charging fees as they desire. What about the fate of PMDC, which will call now PMC for their accreditation with international councils. This whole ordinance is against the doctors community and gives the upper hand to private sector. In this ordinance, the employees of defunct PMDC are hanging in air and their services may be terminated at any time.
— The writer is retired officer of Sindh Govt.
