LAHORE - The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has announced support to the Punjab government in an anti-quacks drive as 40,000 quacks are running clinics in the city and over 600,000 in the whole country who play with lives of people.
PMA leader Dr Salman Kazmi told APP on Sunday that Shahdara, Shadbagh, northern Lahore and Sheikhupura were main targets of quacks. He demanded Punjab Chief Shahbaz Sharif to start a drive to eradicate quackery.
He said the Punjab government had made the Healthcare Commission Act 2010 under which all DCOs and EDOs health were to end quackery in their respective districts but the commission had not worked properly to curb the treat of quacks from the province. He said that in 2009, the Supreme Court of Pakistan in its ruling had ordered all health secretaries to take action against quackery but nothing could be done practically. Soon the PMA will file a contempt of court petition for not acting on the order of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Kazmi said.
When contacted, Chief Executive of the Healthcare Commission, Dr Ajmal said the commission had no power to punish or seal clinics of quacks as there was no Anti-Quackery Act in the country. However, clinics and hospitals can be registered, he said.
Around 65,000 clinics and hospitals are in Punjab and their immediate registration is not an easy task. It needs collective efforts of all institutions, authorities and agencies, he added.
To a question, he said Punjab had 53,000 qualified doctors and around 200,000 quacks. The mushroom growth of quacks did not take place overnight but it happened due to sheer ignorance for the last 65 years, Dr Ajmal said.
However, he said that from May 2013, the commission had started registration of big hospitals, clinics and registered around 200 hospitals.