THE joint session of the National Assembly and the Senate passed several bills related to FATF in an atmosphere where opposition was agitating rather loudly. In this highly charged session, the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) bill was passed without consulting the National Assembly’s relevant standing committee and without debate in this joint session.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan said: “it is time the medical and dental institutions were left on their own with the government only checking the graduates through exit examinations.”

As a former member of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) and former secretary-general of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), I believe that PMDC needed some radical changes since the mushrooming of private medical colleges as an industry. But this act will gravely affect the future of medical care in Pakistan.

The medical institutions will be visited only once in five years, will be free to raise the fee which is already just short of a million per month and they just have to announce the raise three months before increasing it.

The admission criteria in this business venture will depend upon the ability to pay rather than the intellectual ability of a candidate. This will eliminate bright boys and girls of upper middle class.

Worst of all, the quality of teaching and training has already deteriorated. The totally ‘liberated’ medical colleges may not be able to improve the standards and it is predicted that a majority may fail to pass the exit examinations.

The affluent owners of the college have already collected the fee but the underprivileged boys and girls, who failed for no fault of theirs, will practise like thousands of quacks.

I strongly suggest wide consultation with the medical community.

Dr S. Haroon Ahmed
President,
Pakistan Association for Mental Health
Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2020