ISLAMABAD, Oct 30 Taking notice of the fake doctors' recruitment at the District Headquarters Hospital Rawalpindi, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Association (PMDC) has decided to check the registration status of doctors working in public and private hospitals and institutions across the country, Dawn has learnt.

In a letter issued here on Friday, the PMDC directed the federal and provincial hospitals and institutions to ensure that doctors working in hospitals had valid PMDC registration. In this regard, the council has asked the teaching institutions to send the degrees and PMDC registration certificates for free of cost verification.

The letter further directs the hospitals and institutions to ensure that “no appointment is made in any organisation without prior verification of authenticity and validity of the PMDC registration certificate and the degree of doctors by the council”.

“Only doctors who have a valid PMDC registration can lawfully practice medicine and dentistry in the country,” the letter adds.

The council has an online data base inquiry system which was started in the beginning of current year. It has been used to meet the queries of foreign registration authorities for verification of Pakistani doctors working abroad. On average, 15-20 online verification requests sent by foreign registration bodies are treated daily by the council.

Interestingly, no prior verification of authenticity and validity of the PMDC registration certificate is sought by the hospitals and institutions in the country. As many as 149,000 doctors have been registered with the council.

When contacted, PMDC registrar Dr Nadeem said the council's website allows the access to check the registration status of all the doctors registered with the council even to general public.

“We have written to government and semi-government institutions to send a list of their doctors for verification for which we do have an online data base system. We also intend to introduce a multi-tiered checking and monitoring system,” he said.

To a question, he said the council could only contemplate punishment to the practitioners who are registered with the council. However, the fake doctors arrested were not registered with the PMDC, he added.

It is pertinent to mention here that several senior health officials have already been arrested for the hiring of at least four people at the DHQ Rawalpindi, three of them brothers whose medical certificates were found bogus.