ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) has finally ceased to exist after President Dr Arif Alvi assented to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) Bill 2022, making it an Act of Parliament.

In December last year, the parliament had passed the PMDC bill in a joint sitting and sent it to the President Alvi to get his nod, which suggested that the prime minister will constitute the PMDC by notifying it in the official gazette.

The council will include three members from civil society to be nominated by the Prime Minister on the recommendations of the minister concerned.

Besides, a retired high court judge or a practicing lawyer with a minimum experience of 15 years, the surgeon general of the armed forces medical service will also be the council members.

The council will have on its seats secretary National Health Services, provincial health secretaries, five licensed medical professionals, including one dentist, a chartered accountant, one philanthropist and an elected member from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan.

After a formal assent from the president, it has become an Act of parliament leading to disbandment of the existing PMC.

In October 2019, President Dr Arif Alvi had promulgated an ordinance, dissolving the PMDC to replace it with a new organisation, PMC.

The ordinance was converted into an Act of parliament amid a controversy over appointment of the then PM Imran Khan’s cousin Dr Nosherwan Barki as its unannounced head.

Inclusion of people from outside the medical profession as its members also raised eyebrows.

However, on Aug 20, last year Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had withdrawn the nomination of its seven out of nine members and then nominated seven new members for the appointment of members of the Medical and Dental Council and the National Medical and Dental Academic Board of PMC. Later a bill to repeal PMC and restore PMDC was passed by the Parliament.

However, President Alvi sent the bill for reconsideration. The parliament in December again passed the bill in a joint sitting due the bill was deemed to become Act of parliament.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2023