KARACHI, Aug 5: After a gap of almost 13 years, the elections of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) will be held on Aug 6 and 10 in Sindh and Balochistan, respectively.

The candidates from Sindh are Dr Shershah Syed (Karachi), Dr Zafar Abbas (Mirpurkhas) and Noor Mohammad Memon (Hyderabad).

Those from Balochistan include Dr Shabbir Lehri (Bolan Medical Hospital Complex), Dr Iqbal Tareen (BMHC), Dr Noor Mohammad Bugti (Director Health Foundation) and Dr Changez Gitchki (Medical Superintendent Helper Eye Hospital, Quetta).

Commenting on the polls, PMDC General-Secretary Dr Qaiser Sajjad said that medical education and training in Pakistan was going through a crisis and time had come to bring changes in the role of the PMDC.

The organisation, he said, had failed to act in the greater interest of the medical profession and protect patients' rights. It was not a true representative body of doctors and had taken many illegal actions, he said, adding that the Supreme Court had taken notice of its illegal action of recognising 30 private medical institutions by violating its own rules and regulations.

Dr Sajjad said Sindh and Balochistan had no representation on the PMDC and elections for these provinces had always been postponed on one pretext or another.

He feared that these elections could also be declared null and void on any lame excuse as had happened once in the past.

"The delay in elections for 13 years was a conspiracy against doctors who have an opportunity today to act and protect patients’ rights from organised quackery," he said while appealing to all the registered doctors to take part in the polls.

Dr Shershah Syed, a candidate from Sindh, said that the doctors wanted a true and independent representative body that should be able to work like its sister organisations GMC, UK and the Indian Medical Council.

The PMDC, he said, should not be dominated by the government nominees and should not act to protect the interest of the owners of private medical colleges and universities.

In Sindh today, polling will be held from 9am to 4pm at the Sindh and Dow medical colleges, Karachi Medical and Dental College, Karachi; Liaquat University of Health Sciences, Jamshoro; Civil Hospital, Hyderabad; Peoples Medical College, Nawabshah; Civil Hospital, Mirpurkhas; Civil Hospital, Sukkur and Chandka Medical College, Larkana.