KARACHI, April 13: The much-awaited health commission bill is expected to be enacted as a law in the province by next week, said the caretaker provincial health minister.

`I have held a meeting with the chief minister today in which he has agreed to enact this law very soon,` said Health Minister Dr Junaid Ali Shah while speaking to Dawn.

Once enacted as law it would regulate health facilities, curb quackery and ensure safety to medical com-munity, he added.

Dr Shah said the bill had been sent to the law department and would take a few more days before being signed into law by the provincial governor.

`We are caretaker government and can enforce it as an ordinance. It will be up to the next elected lawmakers to pass it from the assembly to make it a good for our people on permanent basis,` he said.

He said soon after the bill signed into a law, his department would launch a campaign against the rampant quackery in the province.`The number of quacks is too heavy. In fact, they are more than the combined number of our doctors and paramedics and it will be a gigantic task to launch a drive against them that we have planned to do,` said Dr Shah.

The Health Commission Bill had been passed by the Punjab Assembly in 2010 and had been handed to the Sindh government by several professional organizations aiming at registration and regulation of health facilities in the province.

The bill proposes to set up an independent commissionhaving representation from the government and private medical associations, radiologists, pharmacists and homeopaths.The bill also ensures that police will not register any FIR against a doctor who is facing a case of negligence.

Instead, an inquiry panel comprising doctors and judges will investigate a case first.

Similar investigations will be launched against a medic if anyone from the public lodges a complaint.

The bill also recommends five years imprisonment and Rs200,000 fine against one, who manhandles a doctor.