ISLAMABAD: A recent Presidential order dissolved the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council through an ordinance and replaced it with the Pakistan Medical Commission. The decision is perplexing despite the claims made by the Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Health, who stated that the change had been made to modernize the country’s medical education regime.
The government had failed to push through the Senate a similar law — the PMDC Ordinance 2019 — to deal with issues related to medical colleges, attached hospitals, and health professionals earlier this year because of stern resistance from the opposition parties enjoying a majority in the upper house. However, it would have been much better for the government to have made a serious attempt to take the opposition parties into confidence on its proposals, instead of choosing the less-favored path of resorting to presidential ordinances. Let alone talking to the opposition parties, the writers of the new law did not even consult the management of the public medical institutions, bodies representing doctors, and other stakeholders before unilaterally and secretly implementing the decision. The haste shown by the government in bringing in the ordinance without wider consultation gives credence to the allegations that the step had been taken in connivance with the management of the private medical institutions and to please their politically influential owners.
The PMDC — the statutory regulatory authority responsible for prescribing standards for, and governing, medical education and profession in the country — had for some time been enforcing stricter criteria to regulate the mushrooming of private medical colleges in the country in line with an earlier apex court decision. Some of these colleges were shut down, and others were made to stop admitting students who could afford to pay huge sums in donations, even if they were at the bottom of the merit list. In order to mitigate the financial burden on middle-class students, the PMDC had capped the fee for all private institutions. The teaching hospitals attached to these institutions were made to comply with stricter criteria and improve facilities. It is quite evident that the owners of these colleges did not like the restrictions that would cut into their massive profits and force them to provide better facilities to their students. The new ordinance will allow private medical institutions much greater autonomy to operate. They will now be free to accept donations from students, charge higher fees, choose a university of their own liking for affiliation, set their own criteria for hiring faculty, and whatnot. There had been several complaints against the PMDC and its operations. However, the military-style coup to eliminate the authority was unjustifiable.
