ISLAMABAD: Member National Assembly (MNA) Shaista Pervaiz on Tuesday tabled two bills in the house to amend Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) Act and Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority (IHRA) Act.

“I want to request that before giving a licence it should be verified that if a person is capable to do practice and is well qualified because otherwise life of people will be at stake.”

She said Noor Mukadam was murdered and then it transpired that her killer Zahir Jaffar was a physiotherapist and had gotten the licence to practice in Pakistan.

“Noor Mukadam’s father has been running from pillar to post to get justice since 2021,” she said.

Noor, 27, was found murdered at Jaffar’s residence in Islamabad’s upscale Sector F-7/4 on July 20, 2021. A first information report (FIR) was registered the same day against Jaffar and he was arrested from the site of the murder under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of the victim’s father, Shaukat Mukadam, a retired diplomat.

After getting consent of the house, the deputy speaker of the National Assembly sent the bills to standing committees for consideration.

The Islamabad Healthcare Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2024 suggests that in clause (xvi) after the word “psychologist”, the words “registered as mental health practitioner” shall be inserted. MNA Shaista Pervaiz said it was an effort to effectively and deeply regulate rehabilitation centres and keep a check on them.

Similarly, the “Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (Amendment) Bill 2024” states that the PMDC Act 2022 only governs medical and dental practitioners. In order to bring mental health practitioners within the ambit of the Act, the entire law has to be tweaked. “I have proposed certain amendments to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council Act 2022. However, similar amendments will have to be made through the breadth of the law to govern matters of registration and entitlements of mental health practitioners,” she said.

“The minute details regarding the qualification of mental health practitioners may be detailed in rules and regulations (as has been done for medical and dental practitioners),” she sated.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2024