KARACHI: The Sindh Cabinet taking a policy decision has decided to create Sindh Medical Commission (SMC) in line with the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) to regulate private medical institutions, including their fee structures in the province and also demanded to enroll 95 percent students of the province in the medical institutions of the province.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah presided over the cabinet meeting here at the CM House on Thursday. The meeting was attended by all the provincial ministers, advisers, chief secretary Mumtaz Shah and concerned secretaries.
The health department told the cabinet that PMC was created by the federal government in September 2020 to provide for regulation and control of medical professionals and to establish a uniform minimum standard for basic and higher medical training and recognition of qualification in medicine and dentistry.
It was observed that the introduction of PMC has invited serious reservations during the process of conduction of tests. The students have badly suffered due to the huge number of discrepancies found in the MDCAT test held on Nov 29, 2020. Some 30 questions were out of syllabus, the result of 127,000 candidates was uploaded on the PMC website full of anomalies and discrepancies.
The total candidates appeared from Sindh were 25,252 of them 8287 means 32 percent were declared qualified which created a sense of disappointment among candidates and their parents.
The cabinet was informed that the Sindh Medical and Dental Council Bill (SMDC) was drafted and placed for approval previously. Subsequently PMC Act 2020 was passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan, therefore SMDC bill could not be introduced in the provincial assembly for enactment.
The cabinet directed the health department to write a letter to the PMC and inform them about the decisions of the provincial cabinet.
Census: The provincial cabinet was informed that the federal cabinet has approved Census 2017 despite serious reservations already tabled in the Council of Common Interests (CCI). The provincial cabinet observed that the census subject belonged to the CCI and the federal cabinet was not competent to approve it.
The Sindh cabinet rejected the census and decided to take up the issue with the federal government.
Capt Safdar’s arrest: The provincial ministerial committee constituted against the arrest of the Captain Safdar, a PML-N, was presented in the cabinet. The report accused some federal ministers and the local MPAs of PTI for pressuring the police for registering a case against captain Safdar allegedly for raising slogans within the premises of the Mazar-e-Quaid.
The report said the hooliganism within the mazar, whatsoever, was a magistrate cognizance case and it had nothing to do with the police but the police were pressurized by the federal government (some ministers) and the PTI local MPAs. Finally on the fake complaint of an `accused’ person who was not present within the mazar a police case was registered against Capt Safdar (retd).
The arrest of Captain Safdar on October 19 was made in violation of the sanctity of `chadar and chardiwari’ which was also an illegal act. The report also said what had happened with the IG police has already been settled with the action taken by the Chief Of Army Staff.
The cabinet decided not to make the ministerial committee report public, however, it was decided that the federal government would be apprised about the interference of its ministers and their [PTI] MPAs in police affairs in Sindh. The federal government would be urged to take action against its involved members.
PCR Kits: The health department told the cabinet that it was in need of 300,000 PCR kits for which the cabinet approved release of Rs30 million for immediate purchase and simultaneously requested the federal government to provide PCR kits.
The cabinet also approved rules of Sindh Coal Authority and some other departments.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020