KARACHI, July 11: The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), Karachi chapter, on Wednesday strongly condemned the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) for ignoring its own rules and regulations.

The PMDC, in its 108th session, which was dominated by private institutions, made decisions in favour of those institutions that had been found deficient by the inspection team. The reports of the inspection team for 40 institutions were not presented in the council meeting. Even then the council recommended their recognition, a PMA release said.

The presentation report of the inspection team for every institution is mandatory under the PMDC rules and regulations.

This is the second time that the council has taken an illegal decision in the absence of a large number of representatives from major medical institution like the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan, Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Centre, National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, National Institute of Child Health, Army Medical College, Post-Graduate Medical Institute Lahore, Post-Graduate Medical Institute Peshawar, Ayub Medical College, Balochistan University, Peshawar University, Punjab University, Shaikh Zayed Medical College and others.

In fact they were not even invited for this meeting to avoid any objection, the statement added.

The PMA Karachi appreciated the reaction shown by the PMA Punjab and said it would support its actions against the PMDC irregularities.

It also believed that all the council members of the PMDC from different medical institutions of the country who were not invited nor consented for the PMDC meeting should raise there voices and protest against the illegal decision.

“If these types of illegal decisions continued unabated, then very soon qualified quacks would be seen playing with the health of the citizens all over Pakistan,” it said, adding that already approximately 650,000 quacks were playing with the lives of innocent people across the country.

The PMDC should be a strong autonomous body for the betterment of the medical institutions to produce good quality, trained and patient-friendly doctors, who can benefit ailing people, the release concluded.—PPI