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Thursday March 28, 2024

PMDC staff protest against dissolution of council

By Our Correspondent
October 22, 2019

Islamabad:Besides dissolving the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) to form a new organisation, Pakistan Medial Commission, the presidential ordinance has also laid off all staff members of the regulator for medical and dental education and practice.

The ordinance's promulgation led to the sealing of the PMDC building by Islamabad's district administration and police and seizure of records. Laying off all staff members both permanent and temps and totaling around 400, the Pakistan Medical Commission Ordinance, 2019, read, "employees and officers of the dissolved Pakistan Medical and Dental Council whether permanent, regular, temporary or contractual shall cease to be employees of the Council; they shall be paid their end of service benefits as accrued up to the date of cessation of employment ..., and they shall retain no further right of employment with the Commission subject to having the right to apply on merit for any position advertised or offered by the Commission and where obtaining fresh employment with the Commission shall not in any manner affect the benefits to be paid to such employees.”

Caught unawares by the termination and closure of offices for one week, the distressed akistan Medical and Dental Council employees, especially lower staff members, gathered outside the premises.

They announced that they would move the court of law to get relief against their sudden yet unwarranted and illegal sacking.

The employees flayed the PTI government over their termination after prolonged service and said ironically, Prime Minister Imran Khan had promised before elections to offer 10 million jobs but after coming to offer, his political dispensation had begin closing down government organisations and sacking employees and thus, triggering massive unrest.

They insisted that the PMC ordinance would lead to the imposition of a group handpicked by the health ministry’s top bosses to serve their ends.

The employees said all medical and dental education accreditation, curriculum and research matters would be shifted to the Higher Education Commission, while the PMDC would be left with the task of only holding exams and registering MBBS and BDS students and graduates.

akistan Medical and Dental Council registrar Brigadier (r) Dr Hafizuddin Ahmed Siddiqui, who was appointed in July this year for a term of three years, complained that he wasn’t taken into confidence by the ministry about the PMDC dissolution and that he learned about it only after the building was seized by police.

He said he had planned to take up the matter with the health ministry’s top bosses, especially to protect the future of staff members. The Pakistan Medical Association, which represents doctors, denounced the ordinance as undemocratic and urged the political parties to come forward for the protection of medical and dental education and practice and PMDC staff members.