The Medical Licensing Department at the Supreme Council of Health will soon start receiving applications online from private doctors seeking a licence to practise in Qatar, a senior official of the Council has said. The “online licensing” will simplify and speed up the procedures for issuance of licences, Dr Faleh Mohammed Al Ali, Assistant Minister for Policy Affairs at the Council and Director of the Licensing Department told The Peninsula. “We have been working on the project for sometime and the online service will be available in a couple of weeks. Applications for renewal of licences will also be accepted online, once the service is introduced,” said Faleh Mohammed. He said the department had recently issued new licences to some general practitioners allowing them to practise as specialists. This was done following a review of the medical degrees of various countries as part of a plan to put well-defined standards and criteria for the licensing process. “We have decided to recognise some degrees which were not earlier considered as specialist degrees. Accordingly, new licences were issued to some doctors allowing them to practise as specialists,” said the official. He said any private doctor can apply for a specialist licence, if the person had the required qualifications and if he met the conditions set by the Council. “We are developing a new website for the Supreme Council of Health which will also include information about the licensing procedure and requirements,” said Faleh Mohammed. The Council has tied up with Dataflow, a leading international document verification and screening company to verify the credentials of private healthcare practitioners seeking a licence to practise in Qatar. This is to detect fake documents and prevent fraudulent practitioners from operating in the country. “We have already started sending documents to this company for verification. Using their database, they can detect if any applicant in Qatar with fake documents had applied for a medical licence in any other country in the region and was rejected,” said Faleh Mohammed. He said there may be cases where a certificate could not be verified because the university may have ceased to exist or be located in a conflict zone. http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local%5FNews&subsection=Qatar+News&month=May2009&file=Local_News200905275403.xml

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