KARACHI, Aug 18: Strongly opposing the recently passed act under which the Pakistan Medical Dental Council (PMDC) stands dissolved and all relevant powers have been given to a six-member body, a former member of the council backed by members of the Pakistan Medical Association held a press conference on Saturday and demanded that the government abolish the ad-hoc setup and form a high-powered commission on medical education to audit the activities of medical institutions in the country.
The briefing was organised at the Karachi Press Club.
Highlighting his concerns, Dr Shershah Syed, a former member of the PMDC, said that late at night after suspension of rules on July 12, MNA Yasmin Rehman presented an amended bill regarding the PMDC in parliament which was not on the agenda and the bill was passed without discussion.
The original bill, he said, had been sent back with recommendations which were not included in the bill except the recommendation that the CPSP (Council of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan) should be included in the council. Last week, the president signed the bill and, subsequently, the PMDC stood dissolved.
Members of the executive committee are: Dr Sibtul Hassan, Dr Asim Hussain, Dr Masood Hameed, Dr Naveed Rashid, Dr Manzoor Hussain and Dr Zubair Ahmed.
“It is disturbing to note that parliament has given all the powers of the PMDC to a six-member executive committee for one year. The bill is not acceptable as it will only help the owners of private medical colleges and their vested interest groups who are using government institutions for their benefit,” he said.
The PMDC, he alleged, had already recognized more than 130 medical and dental colleges without fulfilling the basic criteria of the PMDC in the private and public sector. Some of these colleges had no affiliated hospitals and many of them had no faculty members and infrastructure to run medical colleges.
“They all are charging enormous fees and donations. The president of the PMDC and the other members of the executive committee should not be given these absolute powers for 12 months. They should not recognise any medical college in this interim period and should complete the task of elections of the PMDC council members in three months,” demanded Dr Syed.
Expressing his reservations over the performance of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Dr Syed said that the commission had no control over the mushroom growth of universities. All these universities were part-time institutes where vice chancellors, pro-vice chancellors, professors, other faculty members and even research scholars were working on a part-time basis.
The medical universities recently, he said, had started post-graduate programmes in an environment where merit was being ignored. “This kind of programme will produce half-cooked, half-baked specialists who will be dangerous for patients and communities. Before starting the programme the universities should have appointed full-time faculty members in their medical schools and then structured training programmes.
“The government should be able to justify the investment of billions in this sector which hasn’t raised the standards of medical education and care of patients. It is easy to spend taxpayer’s money without honesty, merit, audit and accountability,” he remarked.
It is high time the government formed a high-powered commission on medical education to audit the activities of medical institutions in the country.
He demanded that members of the executive committee be not allowed to recognize any new medical college in Pakistan till the formation of an independent PMDC with elected members from all provinces and election for members be completed within three months.