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PPA flays admission ads

'PPF not a recognised

institution'

SHAHID MALIK

LAHORE: Pakistan Pharmacist Association (PPA) has severely criticized the admissions to the Category 'B' diploma in pharmacy, currently going on in a number of districts in the Punjab province, which, may lead to promotion of quackery within the profession at the expense of the name of a government institution.

Addressing a news conference here on Saturday, Ishfaq Ahmed, Mehr, President, PPA (Punjab) and its Secretary General Sheikh Manzoor Saeed, referred to the advertisements appearing in a section of the vernacular press, soliciting applications for admission by the Punjab Pharmacy Foundation, despite the fact that diploma classes in categories 'B' and 'C' had been closed in the province by the regulatory body known as the Punjab Pharmacy Council.

As a result, the PPA office-bearers claimed, registration in category 'C' of pharmacy had not been allowed since 1981. This being a pre-condition for enrolment in the next category, they said there was now no question of admissions being opened for the higher category.

The PPA also challenged the existence of the Punjab Pharmacy Foundation, quoting from a letter from the Pharmacy Council of Pakistan, which refused to confirm the status of the foundation. The letter dated August 16, 1995 has clearly stated that "the claims of the said foundation appearing in the press recently as well as in the prospectus for their programme are totally false, baseless and misleading" for the simple reason that the Pharmacy Council of Pakistan "set up under the Pharmacy Act 1967 has so far not recognized or affiliated any institution by the name of Punjab Pharmacy Education Foundation."

At the news conference, copies were also distributed of a semi-official letter addressed to the Punjab Health Minister Rana Ikram Rabbani, in which the Federal Director General of Health Dr. N. M. Sheikh had confirmed that in July, 1987, "all the provincial governments and pharmacy councils were advised to immediately stop further direct registration in Register 'B' and enrolement in Register 'C'.

The director general has also been quoted as saying that the authorities were "making every possible effort to curb the quackery especially in the health sector as our prime concern here is the precious human lives." As is the practice throughout the world, the letter said, "the sale of drugs has to be supervised by a qualified pharmacist "so the government was committed to limiting "the supervision of drug sale to graduate pharmacists in a gradual manner by initially restricting the future licensing in the big cities and then gradually moving down to the smaller cities." Heavy influx of entrants without suitable qualifications was liable to "ruin the efforts made towards bringing improvement in Drug Delivery System," the letter concluded.