KARACHI, June 29: The Pakistan Association of Private Medical and Dental Institutions on Wednesday renewed its demand that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council should hold a national licensing examination of all medical graduates before granting them a permanent registration. The PAMI also urged authorities to fix minimum workload for medical teachers so that they could become accountable and their interaction with students could be increased. “They should remain in colleges for a longer period. They should come on time and refrain from leaving early for ‘afternoon siesta’, before going for private practice,” it suggested.

Talking to journalists here at a local hotel, PAMI President Dr Asim Hussain, who was accompanied by Jinnah Medical College’s Chairman Dr Tariq Sohail, said that the PMDC was presently recognizing degrees of all medical graduates without assessing their level of expertise, knowledge and skills.

“There should be a cut-off stage, and less capable and incompetent students of both government and private colleges should not be allowed to practice medicine in society,” he urged.

Dr Hussain said that the PAMI was founded with objectives of maintaining the high standards of medical education. He said that since its inception, the PMDC was providing cover to the incompetence of some senior medical teachers who habitually used to come late and leave early.

In fact, he said, they worked as ‘part-time teachers’ and were generally more interested in private practice. They had always lobbied for their children’s seats in medical colleges and when admitted they were examined more favourably by their peers in getting positions and distinctions, he alleged.

He was of the view that the scenario was changing with the advent of private medical colleges, as it had threatened the position and privilege of these ‘dons’ of medical education. Consequently, he said, “They are blocking the representation of private medical colleges in the PMDC, which is our right under the PMDC Act of 1962. The PMDC has unleashed a campaign to denounce private colleges only to protect the dismal condition in the public-sector medical colleges and their attached hospitals,” he added.

Dr Hussain said that the PMDC had solicited support of the Pakistan Medical Association in its crusade against the private medical colleges in the name of high fees charged by the private colleges. Although the PMA Centre Secretary had said on the record that education of a doctor in public sector cost Rs1.4 million to the national exchequer, the average fee charged by private colleges was less than this amount, he added.

“The PMDC and the PMA have completely failed in checking quackery and malpractice of registered doctors,” he alleged adding that serious complaints against doctors are being hushed up and hardly a handful have been prosecuted and de-registered. He further alleged that the working of PMDC was not transparent, as much irregularity was seen in the equivalence granted to doctors with exotic postgraduate foreign qualifications and graduates from unrecognized colleges abroad.

He said that the PMDC should be an independent, autonomous, representative and transparent body and private medical and dental colleges should be given proper representation in it. “We have apprised the federal and provincial health officials as well as Sindh Governor Ishratul Ibad of the situation and they have assured us to take up the matter with the concerned quarters,” he said. —PPI