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'Bhungees and sweepers': PMDC forced to eat derogatory words used for forensic staff
IKRAM JUNAIDI — UPDATED 24 minutes ago
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PMDC in its reply said that in Pakistan sweepers and janitors perform postmortems instead of medical examiners. -Photo courtesy PMDC website
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) on Friday was forced to take back derogatory words used for forensic staff, while discussing a public petition against the functions of the council, during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on National Health Services.
The public petition was filed by the Pakistan Medical Association Faisalabad, Young Doctors Association, Private Hospital Association Faisalabad and others.
The petition alleged that after the amendment in the rules of the PMDC in 2012, over the last three years, the representatives of private institutions have outnumbered those of public sector universities in the council.
The petition also calls attention to the council’s recent inclination towards merging the courses of forensic medicine and pathology.
Senator Farhatullah Babar reacts strongly to words in written reply
Forensic medicine is used for crime investigation, particularly in establishing the cause of injury or death. Pathology is a science of the causes and effects of diseases and deals with the laboratory examination of samples of body tissues for diagnosis.
In its written response to the standing committee regarding the petition, available with Dawn, the PMDC said autopsy and postmortem are the main procedures in forensic examination.
“Postmortem should ideally be performed by a medical examiner but in Pakistan, it is performed by sweepers and bhungee (janitor) of the hospital,” PMDC said, in its reply.
PPP’s Senator Farhatullah Babar reacted strongly to the PMDC’s statement and said that the statement makes him feel like a bhungee performed a postmortem on the late PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.
“All over the world, people are moving towards specialisation but in Pakistan, different subjects are being merged,” he said.
Senator Babar said he felt great pain when after the death of Benazir Bhutto, he was told that forensic experts would need to be called from the United Kingdom.
PMDC President apologised for using the word bhungee for the staff conducting postmortem and said he wanted to withdraw this word from the reply and use ‘assistant’ instead.
“However, the fact is that all over the country, there is a shortage of Medico Legal Officers (MLOs) and assistants perform all duties in the labs such as cleaning, sweeping the floors and even conducting postmortems,” he said.
PML-N’s Senator Kalsoom Parveen alleged that PMDC is no longer performing is performing functions beyond its mandate.
“My attempts at improving PMDC, over two years, all failed. Malik Mohammad Rafique Rajwana resigned as a member of the committee because PMDC was not ready to improve itself,” he said.
Standing Committee Chairman Sajjad Hussain Turi echoed the sentiments expressed by his fellow lawmakers.
“The council members of the PMDC have been engaged in business activities, which results in a conflict of interest,” he said.
The committee members agreed to form a subcommittee, which would hold meetings with the petitioners.
Senator Babar told Dawn that it needs to be examined whether the decision making body in PMDC is outnumbered by representatives of private medical colleges and universities.
However, he said, the vested interests of the petitioners should also be considered because prima facie, some complaints appear to be exaggerated.
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IKRAM JUNAIDI — UPDATED 24 minutes ago
1 COMMENT
PRINT
PMDC in its reply said that in Pakistan sweepers and janitors perform postmortems instead of medical examiners. -Photo courtesy PMDC website
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) on Friday was forced to take back derogatory words used for forensic staff, while discussing a public petition against the functions of the council, during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on National Health Services.
The public petition was filed by the Pakistan Medical Association Faisalabad, Young Doctors Association, Private Hospital Association Faisalabad and others.
The petition alleged that after the amendment in the rules of the PMDC in 2012, over the last three years, the representatives of private institutions have outnumbered those of public sector universities in the council.
The petition also calls attention to the council’s recent inclination towards merging the courses of forensic medicine and pathology.
Senator Farhatullah Babar reacts strongly to words in written reply
Forensic medicine is used for crime investigation, particularly in establishing the cause of injury or death. Pathology is a science of the causes and effects of diseases and deals with the laboratory examination of samples of body tissues for diagnosis.
In its written response to the standing committee regarding the petition, available with Dawn, the PMDC said autopsy and postmortem are the main procedures in forensic examination.
“Postmortem should ideally be performed by a medical examiner but in Pakistan, it is performed by sweepers and bhungee (janitor) of the hospital,” PMDC said, in its reply.
PPP’s Senator Farhatullah Babar reacted strongly to the PMDC’s statement and said that the statement makes him feel like a bhungee performed a postmortem on the late PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.
“All over the world, people are moving towards specialisation but in Pakistan, different subjects are being merged,” he said.
Senator Babar said he felt great pain when after the death of Benazir Bhutto, he was told that forensic experts would need to be called from the United Kingdom.
PMDC President apologised for using the word bhungee for the staff conducting postmortem and said he wanted to withdraw this word from the reply and use ‘assistant’ instead.
“However, the fact is that all over the country, there is a shortage of Medico Legal Officers (MLOs) and assistants perform all duties in the labs such as cleaning, sweeping the floors and even conducting postmortems,” he said.
PML-N’s Senator Kalsoom Parveen alleged that PMDC is no longer performing is performing functions beyond its mandate.
“My attempts at improving PMDC, over two years, all failed. Malik Mohammad Rafique Rajwana resigned as a member of the committee because PMDC was not ready to improve itself,” he said.
Standing Committee Chairman Sajjad Hussain Turi echoed the sentiments expressed by his fellow lawmakers.
“The council members of the PMDC have been engaged in business activities, which results in a conflict of interest,” he said.
The committee members agreed to form a subcommittee, which would hold meetings with the petitioners.
Senator Babar told Dawn that it needs to be examined whether the decision making body in PMDC is outnumbered by representatives of private medical colleges and universities.
However, he said, the vested interests of the petitioners should also be considered because prima facie, some complaints appear to be exaggerated.
@Horus @rockstar08 @WAJsal @Junaid B @Pomegranate @Color_Less_Sky @Zarvan @xyxmt @SipahSalar @Bratva @Stealth @Rashid Mahmood
@syedali73 @Leader @DESERT FIGHTER @Jazzbot @Spring Onion, @chauvunist,
@Pakistan Shaheen @karakoram, @syedali73 @rockstar08 @haviZsultan @Gufi @Muhammad Omar @graphican @Gazi @Donatello @Hyperion @Pak_Sher @Sage
@Shamain @Azad-Kashmiri @friendly_troll96
