Latest update March 22nd, 2025 6:44 AM
Mar 21, 2011 News
– names of physicians handed over to police
Senior Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, has issued a stern warning that all physicians who fail to renew their license will be sacked.
Once terminated, physicians will have to begin their registration process and by extension employment process all over again, the Minister revealed during a press conference on Saturday.
According to the Minister, an advisory to terminate will be issued to the Public Service Ministry by the end of this month to terminate any physician who has not been registered, either before January or before the late registration period.
At the moment, he said that the Chief Medical Officer is preparing a list of all physicians employed in the public sector and their registration status.
As it relates to the unregistered physicians who operate within the private sector, Minister Ramsammy noted that their names will be handed over to the police. “Once they are unregistered it would mean that they are practicing illegally…We have given a long notice period to physicians, to dentists to pharmacists to get their registration and annual licenses in order. At the end of this month it would have been two months after the deadline.”
“If they have not done so I am urging them to do so now by utilising the late registration process; after that you will either be terminated if you are in the public sector or in the private sector it means the police will act…”
According to the Minister, this move is warranted in accordance with the law. He pointed out that the renewal of licenses must be by the end of January of the year for those physicians who have not yet registered with the Medical Council or renewed their license and are therefore practicing legally in the country. Moreover, the Ministry of Health is urging the Medical Council to rigidly enforce the laws, Minister Ramsammy added.
He disclosed that the Ministry of Health has given permission to the Medical Council to allow late registration and licensing but noted that the physicians will have to pay a fee for late registration.
It was just last month that the Medical Council issued a warning to the public concerning four physicians who were practicing, up to earlier this year, without being duly licensed to do so. The names that were issued were Dr John Austin, a Parliamentarian with the main opposition People’s National Congress Reform, Dr Abdul Mohamed Hafiz, Dr Abdul Wahab and Dr Vishwamintra Persaud. The latter, a re-migrant, was dismissed from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation after reports had surfaced about his conviction for sexual misconduct on a child.
The Medical Council had revealed that the four doctors are not licensed to practice medicine and anyone seen or attended to by these doctors should contact the Council. Chairman of the Council, Dr Sheik Amir, had told Kaieteur News that Council had been provided with “verbal” reports that the doctors were practising in the country even though they are not registered to do so.
“This is illegal; we are doing this to protect the public,” Dr Amir had declared. “The Guyana Medical Council is not here to be nice to doctors,” he had asserted.
Dr Amir said that since the Council has verbal reports that the doctors are seeing patients, it is the Council’s right to inform the public. According to him, every February, the doctors are licensed and registered to practise in Guyana. The four doctors are not on that list.
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