PMA Warns 600,000 ‘Fake Doctors’ Operating Nationwide, Fueling Hepatitis, AIDS Through Recycled Syringes
This photograph taken on January 8, 2026 shows an unlicensed clinic on the outskirts of Hyderabad, Sindh. PHOTO: AFP
Rusty nails hold used IV tubes on the wall of a clinic run by one of hundreds of thousands of unqualified doctors operating across Pakistan.
Dozens of patients visit the small roadside shop in Sindh every day, where a few chairs are arranged around wooden tables used to lay patients down.
“These patients have faith in me. They believe I can treat them well,” said Abdul Waheed, who opened the facility a few months ago outside the city of Hyderabad.
During the day, the 48-year-old works at a private hospital in Hyderabad. In the evening, he comes to Tando Saeed Khan village to see patients at his clinic and charges Rs300 ($1) per consultation.
“I have spent so much time in this field. I have worked with several doctors. Thanks to God, I have the confidence to diagnose a patient and treat the disease,” Waheed told AFP.
There is no license plate, no registration number and he has no legal authorization to practice as a doctor.
Waheed, who is trained in homeopathy and has completed a four-year nursing course, speaks with confidence.
After examining two young children, he insisted that patients came to him on purpose and trusted his abilities.
“No one has asked me yet. If someone comes, I will see what to do,” he said, reflecting the ease with which unqualified people practice medicine in Pakistan. Such unlicensed clinics are often the first, and sometimes the only, point of treatment for poor communities.
Abdul Ghafoor Shoro, secretary general of the Pakistan Medical Association, said there are “more than 600,000 fake doctors” across Pakistan.
This nationwide figure has been confirmed by the Sindh Healthcare Commission (SHCC), based on estimates by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.
Calling the practice a public health epidemic, Shoro said such practitioners work with doctors, learn a few things there and then open their own clinics.
“Unqualified doctors do not know the side effects and the exact dosage of medicine. If a disease is not properly diagnosed, it can become dangerous,” Shoro said.
“The instruments they use are not sterilized. They simply wash them with water and continue to use them. They reuse syringes, which increases the spread of hepatitis and AIDS.”
When AFP journalists visited Tando Saeed Khan, another unqualified doctor immediately closed his clinic and disappeared.
Outside Waheed’s shop, villager Ali Ahmed said there are several such clinics in the area.
“None of them have qualified doctors. People are not educated and cannot recognize qualified doctors,” the 31-year-old told AFP.
Medical experts say this unchecked practice has a direct impact on Pakistan’s already strained health system, with tertiary care hospitals overwhelmed by patients whose conditions worsen after improper treatment.
Khalid Bukhari, head of Civil Hospital Karachi, said the facility regularly receives such cases from across the country.
“They misdiagnose and mistreat patients. Our hospital is overburdened. Most of the cases we receive are those ruined by them,” said Bukhari, whose public hospital is one of the largest in the country.
“These people are playing with the lives of poor citizens. If people go to proper doctors and get accurate treatment, they don’t need to come to us.”
Regulatory authorities acknowledge their lack of control over the problem.
“We have limited resources. This practice cannot be eliminated easily. If we close 25 shops, 25 new ones will open the very next day,” said Ahson Qavi Siddiqi, head of the Sindh HealthCare Commission (SHCC).
The commission recently sealed a bungalow in Karachi that had served as a hospital – complete with intensive care units for children and adults – because it was unregistered.
“The law against it is weak. We file cases but the accused get bail the next day because it is a bailable offence,” Siddiqi told AFP.
The official also described serious security threats faced by inspection teams.
“These people are influential in their areas. In many cases our teams are being taken hostage. We are being fired upon. I do not have the strength to take strong action,” the SHCC chief said.
Shoro said the practice also financially destroys families who are left with large hospital bills when something goes wrong.
