Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan told reporters here at the committee room of the health ministry that with the opening of job opportunities, especially in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, it had become necessary to select doctors who were professionally competent and could conduct in a dignified manner.
“We do not want to repeat the same experience wherein doctors having dubious credentials and reputation managed to get jobs abroad and eventually brought a bad name to the country,” he said.
The minister said the government would launch a campaign after December to implement a uniform standard of education in medical colleges, both public and private, and only those colleges would be allowed to function which fulfilled the criteria set by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC).
“I have asked the PMDC to do away the concept of provisional recognition because there should be recognition or no recognition,” he added.
“This is necessary because we are pursuing a policy to bring equal accreditation system of medical education so that doctors of all the Islamic countries could practise in any country without taking extra qualification examinations,” he said.
The minister said he had floated the idea during a meeting of the 50th session (golden jubilee) of the regional committee of the World Health Organization for the Eastern Mediterranean Region held last month in Cairo.
Delegations from 22 countries led by the respective health ministers attended the meeting, he said. He said during the session he also met the heads of different delegations and discussed with them the opportunities to explore avenues for pharmaceutical products in these countries.
The minister said a resolution, moved by him, was adopted by the session deploring anti-personnel landmines and recruitment of child soldiers.
Other resolutions adopted at the session related to tobacco-free initiatives, promotion of healthy lifestyles, sustainable health development and poverty reduction, accreditation of hospitals and medical education institutes.
He said Pakistan had also expressed its readiness to send psychiatrists to countries like Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan for treating stress syndrome among children.