Dentist wins case over registration

A UNITED Kingdom-based Namibian dentist who has struggled for the past decade to have his British qualifications recognised by the Medical and Dental Council of Namibia won a legal victory against the council in the High Court in Windhoek on Friday.

Since 2001, Dr Panduleni Itula has tried to get the council the register him as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Namibia. After years of stalling, the council turned down his application in June 2008.That decision has now been reviewed and set aside in a ruling by Judge Kato van Niekerk which was handed down on Friday. Judge Van Niekerk set aside the decision and ordered the Medical and Dental Council of Namibia to again consider Dr Itula’s application in terms of the applicable regulations. The council was further ordered to pay Dr Itula’s legal costs in the case.Dr Itula has a dental practice at Whitley Bay, a town near Newcastle in north-east England.After studying at the University of Bristol Dental School in England, Dr Itula was granted a Licentiate in Dental Surgery by the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1994. In 1998, Dr Itula also obtained a Master in Medical Science degree in oral surgery from the University of Sheffield.According to Dr Itula, these qualifications were already sufficient to allow him to be registered as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Namibia.He also obtained additional qualifications in 2002, when he became a fellow in dental surgery of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.Having applied with the council in 2001 and again in 2002 to have his qualifications recognised, he was told in 2008 that the council had decided not to consider his application because regulations under the Medical and Dental Act of 2008 were not yet in place, Dr Itula stated in an affidavit filed with the High Court.Dr Itula charged that during the years between the time when he first lodged his application with the council and 2008 the council had been recognising, registering and renewing the qualifications of specialists in the field of dentistry. Only his application had been deferred, he alleged.The council’s refusal to recognise his qualifications was ‘unreasonable, unfair and unjust’, Dr Itula claimed. He added: ‘The decision is aimed at denying me the right to exercise a profession in which I am qualified for and to practise it in the country of my birth in contravention of the relevant provisions of the Namibian Constitution.’He argued that the council was obliged to recognise and register his qualifications, training and skills on the same basis as it did with other dental specialists during the period of 1999 to 2008. ‘To do otherwise, as it is trying to do in my case, amounts to overt bias and blatant discrimination,’ he charged in his affidavit.In an affidavit filed on behalf of the council, its Registrar, Ena Barlow, stated that between 1999 and June 18 2008 there were no regulations in place in terms of which dentists could be registered as specialists.The former Dental Board of Namibia however continued to apply regulations which were issued in 1976 and repealed in 1999, Barlow said.Dr Itula was registered in Namibia as a dentist in 2001.When the Medical and Dental Council was established in October 2004, it was realised that there were no regulations in place in terms of which the council could register specialist dentists, and it was decided not to entertain further applications for the registration of specialist dentists until new regulations had come into force, according to Barlow.After the regulations had come into force in June 2008, the council considered his application and decided not to register him as a specialist. According to the council, his qualifications ‘do not meet the minimum requirements for registration as a specialist in maxillofacial and oral surgery’.According to Barlow, Dr Itula did not provide the council with proof that he had undergone a four-year period of training as a specialist.Dr Itula in turn has stated that the British General Dental Council has said he was properly qualified to work as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon. He has also informed the court that he asked to be given an opportunity to meet with the council in person in order to state his case. That request was turned down in February 2008, when the council decided not to give him an opportunity to address it.Dr Itula was represented by Cape Town legal counsel David Borgstrom, instructed by Dirk Conradie. Metcalfe Legal Practitioners represented the council.