The Pakistan Medical Commission ceased to exist after the President signed the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) Bill 2022, converting it into an Act of Parliament.
The President gave his assent following the passage of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) Bill 2022, by the parliament on Thursday. According to a President House statement, the president signed the bill while exercising his powers under Article 75 of the Constitution.
In October 2022, the Senate passed the PMDC (Amendment) Bill, but only after inserting dozens of amendments into it that had already been passed by the National Assembly. Earlier, during the bill’s lengthy debate, opponents claimed that the legislation was intended to create a large number of incompetent medical professionals and serve vested interests.
The Senate Standing Committee on Health previously approved the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council Amendment Bill, 2022, and the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Bill, 2022, with a majority vote, ending the PMC’s legal status.
The Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) ceased to exist after the President signed the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) Bill 2022, converting it into an Act of Parliament.
In December last year, the parliament passed the PMDC bill in a joint session and sent it to the president for approval, which suggested that the prime minister would constitute the PMDC by notifying it in the official gazette.
The council will include three members of civil society who will be nominated by the Prime Minister based on the minister’s recommendations. In addition, the council will include a retired high court judge or a practising lawyer with at least 15 years of experience, as well as the surgeon general of the armed forces medical service.
The council will include the secretary of national health services, provincial health secretaries, five licenced medical professionals, including one dentist, a chartered accountant, a philanthropist, and an elected member of Pakistan’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.
It became an Act of Parliament after the president’s formal assent, resulting in the dissolution of the existing PMC. The President dissolved the PMDC in October 2019 and replaced it with a new organisation, the PMC.
Last year, the Prime Minister rescinded the nominations of seven of its nine members and then nominated seven new members for appointment to the Medical and Dental Council and the National Medical and Dental Academic Board of the PMC. Parliament later passed a bill repealing PMC and restoring PMDC.