Sacked PMDC employees threaten self-immolation

Islamabad :The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council's (PMDC) employees laid off by a presidential ordinance lately have warned that they will resort to self-immolation if the government doesn't restore them without delay.

Besides dissolving the PMDC to form a new organisation, Pakistan Medial Commission, the recent presidential ordinance also terminated the services of all 300 staff members of the regulator for medical and dental education and practice without any prior notice.

Its promulgation also led to the sealing of the PMDC building by Islamabad's district administration and police and seizure of records.

The sacked employees have been staging a sit-in outside the PMDC building demanding their immediate reinstatement.

Zubair Bhutto, a PMDC staff member, flayed the PTI government over sackings after prolonged service and said Prime Minister Imran Khan had promised before elections to offer 10 million jobs but after coming to power, his political dispensation had begun closing down government organisations and sacking employees and thus, triggering massive unrest.

"We all along with families are so disturbed by layoffs that we will take the extreme step of torching ourselves in front of parliament if we don't get back our jobs without delay," he told 'The News'.

Other protesters reiterated the threat and said they would take all possible steps to make the prime minister order the immediate withdrawal of the order for their sudden, uncalled-for and illegal sacking.

“It is the economic murder of 300 families,” said Amir Ahmad, a Class-IV PMDC employee.

He said the government had snatched the bread and butter of the employees by showing them the door.

PMDC chief legal officer Sara Rubab said the new ordinance not only violated the Supreme Court's orders but it also had allowed the private medical colleges to collect fee at will, accept donations from students, choose a university of own liking for affiliation, and set own criteria for faculty hiring.

She said the layoff of all PMDC staff by a single stroke of the pen was a major violation of their fundamental rights, so they all should be restored at once.