KARACHI, Dec 7: A group of 84 doctors have submitted a requisition to general secretary of the PMA, Karachi, calling for a general body meeting, expressing concern over election schedule and the voters’ list.
The doctors have complained that the new entries have been made in the voters’ list after the expiry of due date, while the list displayed at notice board of PMA house contained a number of other flaws.
As pointed out by senior doctors to the present management, the new voters’ list contains only the voters’ number and name whereas it should have PMDC (Pakistan Medical and Dental Council) number of doctors along with their father/husband’s name.
Another point of concern is that the list is not in the alphabetical order, making it difficult for voters to find their names from 23 pages and in the absence of their residential or office address, the candidates will face difficulty to approach voters.
Some of the expecting candidates have expressed dismay that all this has been done deliberately to manipulate the elections by the present administration.
The PMA Karachi has nine elected office-bearers and about 130 members of the executive committee.
Present crisis has surfaced mainly after announcement of election schedule by PMA administration according to which withdrawal of nomination date is Dec 16 while elections will be held on the 19th.
A number of doctors willing to file their nominations have apprehended that both these dates have been chosen to discourage voting as a large number of doctors would be on vacations with families and friends.
Apart from this, there are a large number of doctors residing in Karachi who hail from interior of Sindh who will not be present during these days.
Sources in the PMA said all these dates have been notified as per its constitution, whereas lat year’s elections were held on Dec 24.
It has been pointed out that though the current list shows PMA Karachi’s membership at about 2000 eligible voters, but the same was shown to have 8,300 eligible voters during PMA Pakistan’s elections last year.
This overstatement caused PMA Karachi to pay Rs35,000 which was opposed by a number of its members, including executive members and the finance secretary.
Interestingly, foremost among those going against the present administration is the finance secretary who has already lodged two complaints with the general secretary.
Apart from this, a number of junior doctors have questioned the ineffective role played by PMA during four major crisis arising this year.
There are about 1,300 contract doctors working with provincial health department for more than a decade, and when a delegation approached the PMA to exert influence on the health department, they were guided to form an action committee of their own.
A similar response was given by PMA Karachi to 450 school health doctors who were being transferred to interior whereas 300 of them belonged to Karachi and possessed Karachi domicile.—PPI
