ISLAMABAD: Doctors working in public and private hospitals with expired licences will be fined heavily, the Senate National Health Services (NHS) subcommittee directed on Monday.

The subcommittee of the Senate Standing Committee on NHS also directed that the licences of doctors who do not renew them within a fortnight would be cancelled by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC).

The standing committee received a report from the PMDC last week which listed around 60 doctors working at government hospitals with expired licences. Although doctors are supposed to renew their licences every five years, some had not renewed theirs in decades.

The list included prominent doctors in the capital, such as Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) Deputy Executive Director Dr Zulfiqar Ghouri, who is a member of the medical board constituted for Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif.

PMDC Director Admin Arshad Nawaz had told the committee that doctors with expired licences cannot practice medicine at all. The chair of the committee, Senator Mian Ateeq Shaikh, had formed a subcommittee to look into the issue.

The chair of the subcommittee, Senator Dr Ashok Kumar, was displeased that the Ministry of NHS did not look into the renewal of doctors’ licences, saying this was the only criteria to determine if doctors are working in the country.

He also said hospitals should stop doctors with expired licences from practicing. He said it was strange that doctors “have not renewed their licences since the 1990s but have been working” while the ministry was quiet on the matter.

Senator Kumar directed the PMDC to write to all provincial chief secretaries regarding the issue as well, and to place an advertisement in all national dailies urging doctors to renew their registration within 15 days.

Senator Kalsoom Parveen said the doctors were playing with people’s health. She added that although the PMDC registers doctors, the council does not know how many are working in the country.

She said a report would be submitted before the committee on the number of “deputationist” doctors working in hospitals in Islamabad. She added that doctors’ degrees should be verified “because it can happen that dentists would be treating heart disease”.

NHS Director General Dr Asad Hafeez said the new PMDC ordinance proposes that doctors who have not renewed their licences for years will have to undergo training once again. Credit hours will also be introduced for articles and participation in seminars to ensure continuous professional development (CPD), he added.

“We are on track to ensure that in the future, licences will not be renewed without proof of CPD,” he told the subcommittee.

A Pims doctor who asked not to be named told Dawn that a number of doctors stop practicing for decades, because of which they do not renew their licences.

“Then suddenly they start practicing without realising that because of new research medicines and methods of treatment change every few years. So those doctors who do not register their licences should be advised to start house jobs under the supervision of practicing doctors so they can learn about new methods of treatment and do not play with patients’ lives,” he said.

The subcommittee also discussed the issue of substandard drugs, and was informed that 647 pharmaceutical factoriesout of 889 are operational, with just 22 officers to monitor them.

The senators believed that the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan needed to establish more labs all over the country to check the production of substandard medication. They also criticised the fact that the lab in Islamabad is not functional.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2019