APROPOS the news item ‘Abolition of PMDC causes unrest among doctors in Peshawar’ (Oct 28).

It is good riddance, as the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council was nothing but a trade association to protect and promote interests of the medical professionals. What little it did was lip service to patient, consumer and public interest.

No public representation on their board, none that I could see on their web page. Secretive in every aspect of its operations. Requires little by way of material actions by their members to comply with a grandiose code of professional conduct but no teeth in it. Front and centre to lobby for their own interests, but lacks consensus standard of patient rights.

Knows full well 80pc of physicians are on the take from big pharmaceutical and get paid for writing prescriptions.

Physicians have no responsibility to disclose to the patient ‘conflicts of interest’ in this over-medicated country.

Doctors are one of the most wealthy and influential groups even with a new body to regulate them, chances of positive changes are between zero to none.

A concerned citizen

Karachi

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2019