Healthcare ethics: ‘New doctors should serve one year in rural areas’
Condition could be made mandatory for PMDC registration: minister.
LAHORE:
The federal government believes it should be mandatory for young doctors to serve in rural areas for at least one year before they can get a licence to set up a private practice.
Fresh MBBS graduates should be made to serve at basic health units, rural health centres, tehsil headquarters hospitals and district headquarters hospitals in “hard areas” for a year in order to gain registration as private practitioners with the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), Federal Minister for Regulatory Affairs Firdous Ashiq Awan said on Monday. All provincial governments would be consulted on the proposal, she added.
Hospitals outside the big cities are often understaffed because doctors are reluctant to serve in rural areas. The minister said the health sector couldn’t be reformed without addressing this problem.
She was addressing a seminar titled ‘Ethics in healthcare’ organised by the Pharma Bureau, a body representing multinational pharmaceutical companies operating in Pakistan.
Awan said she would seek to “free” the Central Research Fund from the clutches of the bureaucracy, as it was not currently being used for research purposes, as intended. The money for the fund, currently worth Rs600 million, comes from a one per cent levy on the income of pharmaceutical companies.
The minister said spurious, counterfeit and sub-standard drugs and quackery were a growing problem. The newly formed Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan would put in place codes, rules and regulations that would ensure a minimum standard of medicines, she said, so tragedies such as the deaths of over a hundred patients at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology and 19 deaths due to Tyno syrup were not repeated.
Pharma Bureau Chairman Asif Jooma said in his welcome speech that ethical healthcare simply meant doing the right thing for the patient: provide safe and effective treatment that delivers health benefits.
Jooma said there was a general perception that pharmaceutical companies were motivated by profit as opposed to patient interest.
“If we, as manufacturers and marketers of pharmaceutical therapies, believe our products provide genuine benefit to patients, there is no reason why doctors will not promote your products, which in turn will translate into higher sales and economic profit,” he said.
Jooma stressed the need for strong vigilance of pharmaceutical companies to ensure the safety of clinical trials. Post-marketing surveillance was also important, he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 18th, 2012.
The federal government believes it should be mandatory for young doctors to serve in rural areas for at least one year before they can get a licence to set up a private practice.
Fresh MBBS graduates should be made to serve at basic health units, rural health centres, tehsil headquarters hospitals and district headquarters hospitals in “hard areas” for a year in order to gain registration as private practitioners with the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), Federal Minister for Regulatory Affairs Firdous Ashiq Awan said on Monday. All provincial governments would be consulted on the proposal, she added.
Hospitals outside the big cities are often understaffed because doctors are reluctant to serve in rural areas. The minister said the health sector couldn’t be reformed without addressing this problem.
She was addressing a seminar titled ‘Ethics in healthcare’ organised by the Pharma Bureau, a body representing multinational pharmaceutical companies operating in Pakistan.
Awan said she would seek to “free” the Central Research Fund from the clutches of the bureaucracy, as it was not currently being used for research purposes, as intended. The money for the fund, currently worth Rs600 million, comes from a one per cent levy on the income of pharmaceutical companies.
The minister said spurious, counterfeit and sub-standard drugs and quackery were a growing problem. The newly formed Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan would put in place codes, rules and regulations that would ensure a minimum standard of medicines, she said, so tragedies such as the deaths of over a hundred patients at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology and 19 deaths due to Tyno syrup were not repeated.
Pharma Bureau Chairman Asif Jooma said in his welcome speech that ethical healthcare simply meant doing the right thing for the patient: provide safe and effective treatment that delivers health benefits.
Jooma said there was a general perception that pharmaceutical companies were motivated by profit as opposed to patient interest.
“If we, as manufacturers and marketers of pharmaceutical therapies, believe our products provide genuine benefit to patients, there is no reason why doctors will not promote your products, which in turn will translate into higher sales and economic profit,” he said.
Jooma stressed the need for strong vigilance of pharmaceutical companies to ensure the safety of clinical trials. Post-marketing surveillance was also important, he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 18th, 2012.