ISLAMABAD: The Nat­ional Assembly unanimously adopted on Wednesday the Pakistan Medical and Den­tal Council (Amen­dment) Bill, 2015, with seven amen­dments.

The bill was tabled by Minister for National Health Services Saira Afzal Tarar.

Talking to Dawn, Ms Tarar expressed the hope that the bill would sail through the Senate without any problem.

“Our past experience has shown that policy making and regulation should not be given to one institution alone because it creates problems. The ministry of health had demanded a list of medical colleges from the PMDC, but in response the council went to the court saying the ministry had no right to ask about the number of colleges,” she said.

“Though it is right of the government to make a policy, we have now decided that the policy should made in the light of recommendations of health experts and members of the council,” she said.

“However the conflict of interest is very important. The ministry wants to ensure that members do not have their own medical colleges. Moreover, they can set up medical colleges any time so it has been decided that members will have to submit a declaration of non-conflict of interest annually,” she said.

“We want to make regulation policy very transparent and clear for the betterment of the council and I believe that the minimum of 70 per cent marks in intermediate exams should be fixed for entry test for a medical college,” Ms Tarar said.

Dr Shabbir Lehri told Dawn that the federal government had the right to do legislation.

“We have no objection to the conflict of interest because members should not have their own colleges,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2016