KARACHI: The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has showed its concerns about the news that Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) has forwarded to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) a list of 20 new medical colleges for registration across the country.
As per reports, 14 of the new medical colleges were in Punjab, three in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, two in Sindh and one in Islamabad.
In a statement, PMA said it believed that instead of recognizing more and more substandard institutions, PMDC shouldn’t allow any new medical college to be established but at the same time deal firmly with all those medical colleges which do not fulfill the standards made by PMDC.
“Allegedly all these to be medical colleges belong to highly influential and well-connected individuals and the prime purpose for establishing these colleges has nothing to do with medical education but to mint money in an easiest possible way,” Dr S M Qaisar Sajjad, Secretary General PMA said.
He said for the fact of the matter is that there are already 101 medical and 43 dental colleges in the country including private institutions, but as far as the teaching and training facilities are concerned, majority are lacking the basic requirement of PMDC guidelines.
“For example, do we have 144 Professors of basic medical sciences and 500 bedded 144 hospitals with training facilities across the country? The answer is a big No. That means we are imparting substandard medical education to produce substandard medical graduates to run the healthcare of this unfortunate poor nation,” Dr Sajjad added.
He said instead of recognizing more and more substandard institutions and allowing new medical colleges to be established, PMDC should deal with existing medical colleges which do not fulfill the standards made by PMDC.
Published in Daily Times, July 4th , 2017.
