KARACHI:
The Pharmacy Council of Pakistan (PCP) is a regulatory body of pharmacists and pharmacy profession established under Pharmacy Act, 1967. Its mandate is “to protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and wellbeing of patients and the public who use pharmaceutical services in Pakistan”. The PCP is reconstituted every three years and headed by the Federal DG Health under the Ministry of National Health Services and Regulations in Islamabad. The council also accredits pharmacy schools across the country to ensure the standard of studies are on a par.
Any new pharmacy institute, starting its Pharm D — a five-year degree programme leading to professional registration as pharmacist in Pakistan — has to receive a no-objection certificate from the council before starting admissions. After that, they also need to get accreditation by fulfilling all the requirements of the PCP and inviting the inspection team periodically for evaluation. When all this is done, a summary is then forwarded to the Prime Minister and approved by the federal cabinet. Only then are graduates able to apply for licence in their respective provincial councils, as per law. Any hindrance or delay during any of the steps mentioned above can affect hundreds of graduates. And this happens often.
Many institutes fail to provide a proper accreditation deadline. Instead these institutes keep on admitting new students on the basis of no-objection certificate, all the while failing to finish the complete process and remaining unaccredited for years. As a result, graduates and their families are trapped in a vicious cycle. After spending loads of money on their education, they are left with no choice but to go the court or to other concerned authorities to sort out the matter. In order to save money, this has become a common practice and needs to be stopped immediately. Whatever the reason, students must not suffer. The real culprits need to be identified and punished. It is the responsibility of the PCP to fix all the fault lines that have been created along the years.
Dr Waleed Ahmad
Lahore
Published in The Express Tribune, March 7th, 2021.
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