PMDC to take action against medical colleges for charging excessive fee

Islamabad : Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has decided to take action against medical and dental colleges on charging excessive fee from students and directed them to immediately refund it to them.According to an official of PMDC, on receiving 50 complaints of charging excessive fee, the council took serious notice and directed all the medical and dental colleges to charge only prescribed fee which is Rs950,000 for local students and USD 18,000 for foreign students.He advised the medical students to report any such complaint of extra fee charging on PMDC’s email address, which is complaint@pmdc.org.pkHe added in order to make inspection criteria of medical and dental colleges in line with the international practices and to ensure quality education, the council has prepared two separate inspection and evaluation performas.He said the Initial Recognition Framework 2019 is applicable for inspection of all colleges seeking first time recognition while the Performance Evaluation Framework 2019 is applicable to all existing medical and dental colleges to evaluate their performance and to determine their status as ongoing colleges.He said the council would issue warning to all those public and private hospitals with having deficiencies in delivery of medical treatment to patients across the country.The council will offer assistance to all such hospitals, which are deficient in terms of practices to improve delivery of medical treatment by doctors, he added.He said the council has already advised hospitals to strictly implement the recording of all procedures and availability of patients’ medical notes for considering cases of negligence.He said the PMDC has introduced for the first time an annual quality categorization of all public and private medical colleges in Pakistan.The colleges will be graded into five categories from A+ to D based on performance and facilities and faculty, he added.The official said the purpose of the grading was to assist students in making their choices as well as enabling colleges to improve their quality.As a first step, the council has decided to inspect all existing public and private medical and dental colleges in single largest inspection where all 167 colleges will be inspected on the new frameworks between June and July 2019. He said the inspection system has been developed to provide for a transparent and merit based system.He added inspections would be carried out on a periodical basis of the colleges on an annual or two or three year basis.He said the council has formulated a policy to impose a revalidation requirement upon doctors in line with best international practices rather than merely renewing their license after a specific period.The official said this step would help doctors to have update on modern developments and techniques to ensure best quality treatment to patients.He said the council has initiated major information technology reforms and currently there is a definitive lack of digital enablement at the PMDC.He added steps have been taken on an urgent basis to further improve efficiency by implementing a policy of immediate automation and digitization of all resources.He said the digital portal is being designed to enable public to verify doctors’ credentials including specialisation through a mobile application.The digital portal will also enable public to submit their complaints online as well as well review any disciplinary action taken against any doctor.He said the council has decided to install proprietary software to provide for digitalization and electronic access of the registration processes undertaken by the PMDC.These systems will allow students and doctors to apply and renew their licenses and obtain other certifications through an online system, he added.

from The News International - Islamabad http://bit.ly/2JUFUGO