PMDC crisis

Published September 1, 2015
The affairs of the PMDC have been deemed complicated enough to require some corrective measures initiated by the IHC.—PMDC website
The affairs of the PMDC have been deemed complicated enough to require some corrective measures initiated by the IHC.—PMDC website

NO reliable model has resulted from the country’s experiment of establishing organisations to look after and discipline professionals in their field without strict state supervision.

Adjustments — and promises — continue to be made amid interventions,Astance away. In recent times, the affairs of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council have been deemed complicated enough to require some corrective measures initiated by the Islamabad High Court.

The council had been hit by problems successively and often of scandalous proportions, such as the unmonitored mushroom growth of private colleges that were sometimes accused of functioning as cheap and incompetent degree-awarding mafias.

The face-off between PMDC and the government persisted at the cost of the people and the reputation of the medical profession. The fact that the ministry has been able to secure some say in the working of the PMDC is testament to the difficulties Pakistan is faced with in finding the right formula wherein professionals are expected to act as their own monitors.

All that can be hoped for is that the search for an ideal where checks and balances are offered by the profession itself has not been put on hold. In fact, let us hope that such a search has entered a new phase.

The result of the Islamabad High Court’s intervention in the dispute between the National Health Services and the PMDC was an ordinance.

The latter abolished the PMDC executive council and placed the organisation in the temporary care of a management committee.

The ordinance seeks to reduce the number of executive council members by about two-thirds, to just 35. Twenty of them will be elected with 15 nominated (ex-officio) members joining on the basis of their expertise in different fields.

There will be one representative each from the public-sector colleges in the four provinces, Fata and Islamabad. Private colleges in the four provinces, Fata and Islamabad Capital Territory will send one representative each.

The government promises to hold the election for a new executive council within 120 days — to be supervised by a representative of the chief justice of Pakistan. The drastic cut in numbers ought to lead to some clarity but the solution will require much more.

It will require a deep, long and hard struggle by a new-look and hopefully reinvigorated PMDC that is expected to be functioning a few months down the road.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2015

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