In a bid to improve the service delivery of the disorganised public health sector, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly has directed the health ministry to verify the degrees of the doctors attached to the government institutions and submit its report within three months.
These directions were made in a PAC meeting presided over by its chairman Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan at Parliament House on Thursday. "Healers with fake degrees pose a serious threat to the health of public in the country, as unqualified and inexperienced doctors and nurses are ruining the health of patients and also eroding the confidence in the system", he added.
During the course of audit National Programme for Family Planning and Basic Health Care (provincial programme implementation unit), Quetta, it was observed that the local administration had appointed number of officials with fake degrees and the committee directed the authorities to recover Rs 2.388 million from these persons.
The ministry informed the PAC that all the persons appointed on fake degrees had been terminated and efforts were being made to recover their salaries. The committee was told that PPIU-Balochistan, Quetta had issued notices to the concerned persons to deposit the amount in the government treasury but none of them have so far acted accordingly. Now PPIU has taken up the case of recovery with the concerned District Co-ordination Officer.