ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has constituted a search committee comprising seven members which will undertake the task of appointing members to the Medical and Dental Council and the National Medical and Dental Academic Board of the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC).

The committee will invite applications from candidates fulfilling the prerequisites through advertisements and then follow the necessary process for appointing them as members.

The search committee is to be presided over by Minister of National Health Services Abdul Qadir Patel while the secretary establishment will serve as the vice chairman.

Other members are federal health secretary, Dr Mohammad Aurangzeb, Dr Syed Ali Farhan Razi and MNAs Zahra Wadood Fatemi and Prof Dr Aamir Aziz.

Health minister to head body; PMC employees urge prime minister not to sack them

It is worth mentioning here that on Aug 20, the PMC came to a standstill after PM Sharif withdrew nomination of seven of its nine members.

The PMC was established after dissolving the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) through the Pakistan Medical Commission Ordinance 2019 and later replaced by the Pakistan Medical Commission Act 2020.

According to a Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) issued by the government, “In exercise of powers conferred by the PMC Act 2020, the nominating authority i.e. Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has withdrawn the nomination of all members of the Medical and Dental Council notified on 25th September 2020.”

As per the PMC Act, out of the nine members, the prime minister was authorised to nominate seven, including three from civil society, three licensed medical practitioners and one licensed dentist.

The surgeon general of the armed forces and the secretary of the health ministry are ex-officio members of the commission.

“The prime minister was getting complaints from students all over the country, especially from Balochistan, as there was no representation of provinces in the PMC and it was creating a sense of deprivation among provinces,” said government sources.

Another set of sackings on cards

While the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) Bill 2022 is on the verge of being approved, it will be the second time in the last three years when hundreds of employees may lose their jobs. Employees of the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) have, therefore, urged the government not to let this happen.

Earlier, over 200 regular employees of the defunct PMDC with pensionable jobs were left on the road when the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government dissolved the PMDC and established the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC).

The decision of the PTI government, in 2019, not only made people jobless but tens of pensioners and their families suffered as they stopped receiving their pensions.

The employees had filed a petition before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and the court had restored all employees on their original terms, declaring all appointments done by the PMC illegal.

However, the employees could not be restored.

The National Assembly already passed a bill which suggests abolishing the PMC and restoring PMDC.

A former employee of the defunct PMDC, requesting not to be named, said in the PMDC the same work was done by employees in a department with one fourth of the salary that the current employees were getting. “Even if this bill was not in field, all the PMC employees are appointed on contracts and the contract can be terminated anytime with one month’s notice,” he said.

“More than 220 PMDC employees were thrown out of their jobs by the PMC. More than 30 regular employees were sent home with only seven to eight months of salary. More than 25 contractual employees who served for over five years in the PMDC were sacked by the PMC without any intimation and without any salary or benefit,” he said.

“The PMC stopped pensions of more than 30 pensioners who were old and not able to work anywhere but the commission showed no mercy to them. On the other hand, the PMC appointed employees on the highest salaries starting from Rs300,000 to Rs1.1 million despite most of them not fulfilling the basic criteria and experience,” the former PMDC official claimed.

On the other hand, PMC employees have asked the government not to remove them from their jobs.

There are more than 120 employees of PMC who fear that they might lose their jobs, the letter read, adding that these employees want to serve the government. They have urged the prime minister and health minister to take their concerns into consideration.

The employees appealed to the government that they must not be removed from their ongoing jobs and should be adjusted in the upcoming format of medical and dental council, it stated, adding that the families of all PMC employees were dependent on their bread earner.

They have expressed concern that under such circumstances and the current economic situation it is impossible to even survive without a job.

It is once again requested to the high ups to kindly take notice of this on priority, the statement added.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2022