PESHAWAR, Aug 13: The NWFP government is considering forming a regulatory authority to put brakes on the mushrooming growth of quackery and regularize the medical practice, an official of the health department told Dawn here on Monday.

“Under the proposed regulatory authority, monitoring committees would be set up at district level which would comprise district health officials, journalists, judges and retired doctors to keep an eye on the private medical practice and to report in case they find any irregularities,” said the official.

According to him, quackery was taking a heavy toll on human lives, not only in this province but also in other parts of the country. Some 3,50,000 quacks are operating in the four provinces. These quacks mostly operate in rural areas and treat each and every kind of disease by giving steroids to the patients, said he, adding that most patients contact the genuine doctors when their condition deteriorate.

The provincial health minister, Dr Meher Taj Roghani, a paediatrician by profession, is aggressively working for the formation of the regulatory body to “save the gullible patients from falling victim to quacks,” said the official.

He said once formed the body would also be responsible for keeping vigil on the public sector doctors and report to the government if they were found practising in their private clinics.

After the introduction of the institution-based practice, the government had banned the private practice of the doctors outside the state-run hospitals.

The official said the proposed regulatory body would also give legal cover to the recently-launched IBP through which the private practice of the government-employed doctors would become unlawful.

He admitted that even after the ban on their private practice, many doctors were doing IBP and their private practice all at once which has messed up the situation, “but the new law would put a stop such practices.”

Once the law takes effect, the government sector doctors would do practice in only the government-run hospitals and they would be taken to task if found doing private practice, including being sentenced to a six-month jail term.

The government also recognises the fact that the paramedics who were promoting quackery, were doing so because of their low salaries and efforts were under way to announce a formal service structure for them so that they could get chances of promotion and refrain from indulging in quackery.