Thousands of medical graduates fret future amid Covid-19 pandemic

Despite court orders to restore PMDC, health ministry yet to issue notification

ISLAMABAD: At a time when the need for medical practitioners has surged, the absence of a regulatory body in the country to register doctors and fresh graduates from medical and dental institutions has prevented this critical resource from joining the frontlines fighting back against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Three days ago,  Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had ordered the federal health ministry to reopen the offices of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) - the apex regulator of medical medicine and practitioners in the country. Following its directions, the government opened the offices and the council’s registrar to sit in his office.

Despite the commitments made by the government in court on allowing the council to operate, the health ministry has not issued a notification on the restoration of the council. The gates of the council also remain locked.

As a result, it has left the fate of some 16,000 medical students who have passed out from 171 public and private medical institutions in the country, hanging in the balance. It has also created problems for those doctors who want to renew their licences or want to have them validated while applying for various medical positions, including some advertised by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The recently passed-out medical practitioners across the country said they are waiting for the council to start functioning so that they can take the first step on the medical career ladder by taking up house jobs in different healthcare facilities. They explained that they require a registration certificate from the PMDC when applying for house jobs in different hospitals, but ever since the authority was dissolved, they have no platform to acquire that certificate from.

Some students even moved the IHC, pleading before the court that their parents had spent hundreds of thousands of rupees on helping them secure degrees. Despite such a monumental expense and spending years studying, their future remains shrouded in uncertainty in the absence of a regulatory body.

The passed-out students have urged the government, particularly Prime Minister Imran Khan and the superior judiciary to take notice of the situation and take swift, decisive action against those who were playing with the future of thousands of students.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2020.