ISLAMABAD: After finding the
educational degrees of 31 ‘doctors’ and ‘dentists’ to be fake during
verification over the last four weeks, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council
(PMDC) has tracked down seven more individuals, including a woman, practising
medicine in the country with fake or forged registration certificates.
Ironically, some of them are serving in government-run health facilities.
Having struck names of these fake or forged degree-holders off the list of
registered medical practitioners, the council has recommended strict action,
which may be fine, imprisonment or both under the PMDC Ordinance 1962, by the
executive district officers concerned against them, official sources said here
Wednesday.
Since its foundation in 1962, the PMDC has a department where those wanting to
practice medicine and dentistry in the country submit their degrees and
certificates for verification. Once the degrees are verified, the council
formally allows doctors and dentists to practice.
In September 2009, the PMDC moved beyond its role of verifying degrees on
receipt. In a bid to ensure lawful practice of medicine and dentistry, it wrote
to the heads of the country’s all public and private healthcare facilities to
send copies of the degrees and PMDC registration certificates of the doctors and
dentists working under them for free verification.
A special ‘Central Verification Unit’ was also put in place to check genuineness
of the medical and dental practitioners’ credentials submitted. As the degrees
and registration certificates began coming in, the unit got functional and
commenced scrutiny of the documents received. In the process, the unit found
many degrees and PMDC registration certificates to be fake or forged, prompting
cancellation of their holders’ registration.
There followed a request by the council to Federal Investigation Agency for
investigation against these fake doctors and dentists, who claimed to have
obtained degrees between 2000 and 2006.
And now during the verification of the degrees sent in by the government’s
health facilities and executive district officers (health), the PMDC has found
seven individuals practising medicine at private and government facilities while
using either fake registration certificates or those issued to legal medical
practitioners.
The PMDC has developed an online degree registration system, which, according to
an official, will help people know if doctors or dentists they consult are
genuine and licensed and thus, checking quackery.