Replying to an address of welcome presented by the Pakistan Medical Association, Peshawar, at the Peshawar Club yesterday, the Health Minister said that after the promulgation of the Allopathy Ordinance by the Government, quackery had become a punishable offence under the Pakistan Penal Code. As a result, he said, the people of the rural areas in West Pakistan were feeling the scarcity of doctors and this gap could be filled by qualified doctors.

He said that the Government had decided to post doctors in the rural areas by rotation, and for this purpose he had already formed a committee which would keep a record of all the doctors who are posted both in urban and rural areas.

This would, he said, also eliminate the complaints by certain doctors that they were constantly being posted in the rural areas, while others were being given preferential treatment in getting appointments in the cities and towns.

He advised people to come forward and report to the Government wherever they found quacks practicing allopathy. It was necessary because the Government officials could not go door to door to check whether the doctor was a qualified or non-qualified practitioner.

The Health Minister said that he was deeply interested in the welfare of doctors as they were a boon to humanity and were expected to behave in a most unselfish and sincere way. —Agencies