RAWALPINDI, May 13: The district government has ordered the removal of quack dentists sitting on footpaths outside the District Headquarters Hospital.

The operation has been launched on the directives of District Nazim Raja Tariq Kiani, a spokesman for the local government said.

These quack dentists, who use unsterilized instruments, had been playing havoc with the citizens’ health for several years and no one had ever bothered to remove them, he said.

These people were fleecing the poor who visited the area, he added.

The use of unsterilized equipment had been spreading infectious diseases, particularly Hepatitis, he said.

Measures are being undertaken to ensure that these people do not resume their businesses at that place or any other part of the city after being removed from there, he said.

Meanwhile, he said, instructions had also been issued to the Tehsil Municipal Administration’s antiencroach ment cell to remove all fortune-tellers sitting in different localities.

Countrywide figures suggest that there is one dentist per 38,000 people.

This wide margin coupled with illiteracy and poverty force people to turn to quack dentists for treatment.

These quacks make huge profits at the cost of the patients’ health.