Enough is enough: YDA announces sit-in against PMDC policies

The PMDC does not have an executive body and the registrar is not authorised to take policy, YDA leader said.

LAHORE:

The Young Doctors’ Association-Punjab has expressed dissatisfaction with the council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) stating that the CPSP lacked a strategy to deal with the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) on the issue of doctors’ registration.

Addressing a press conference at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology on Wednesday, YDA leaders said they would file a writ petition against the PMDC and hold a sit-in in front of the PMDC’s Islamabad office after Eid. Dr Amir Bandesha of the YDA said, “We will not end our sit-in until all doctors who have cleared the FCPS/MCPS exams are registered. If necessary, we will spend the Independence Day in front of the PMDC’s office in Islamabad.”

He said hundreds of consultants had cleared the post-graduate training but couldn’t be posted as consultants because the PMDC hadn’t registered them.

He said the PMDC would deny some doctors registration but register others who had strong references even if they were from the same hospitals. The PMDC does not have an executive body and the registrar is not authorised to take policy matters in his own hands, he said.

He said if the PMDC de-recognised an institute for post-graduation then the procedure for inductions should stop. “To de-recognise a training institute, the PMDC has to issue a letter and give six-months to the institution to fix its problems,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 17^th, 2014.