LAHORE: The statements issued by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) against the opening of four new medical colleges by the Punjab government are based on ‘mala fied intentions’, office bearers of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) said in a statement on Friday.
The statement further read that the PMDC has raised objections to opening government medical colleges, which will provide cheap, quality education, however has ‘turned a blind eye’ to irregularities going on in private medical colleges despite various allegations leveled by different stakeholders.
Office bearers of the PMA and Young Doctors Association Professor Yasmin Rashid, Dr Sarwar Chaudhry, Dr Tanveer Anwar, Dr Kamran Saeed, Dr Shahid Malik, Dr Izhar Chaudhry, Dr Ashraf Nizami, Dr Akhter rasheed Malik, Dr Rana Sohail, Dr Salmaan Kazmi, Dr Talha Sherwani, Dr Aslam Rao, Dr Khuda Bakhsh, Dr Kamraan and Dr Khalid Idrees expressed their concern.
They alleged that PMDC avoids taking action against the ‘mafia’ running private medical colleges and committing other irregularities in admissions, while it is ‘bent’ on closing down institutions.
They alleged both the PMDC and the University of Health Sciences (UHS) have become a part of the mafia running private colleges, as they could not find fault with any private college during inspection for an entire month, despite the fact that private colleges are facing severe staff shortages. They maintained that the PMA and the YDA has diverted the PMDC authorities’ attention to various issues many times but in vain.
The office bearers have further demanded the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of the situation and root out the influential mafia of private colleges from the ranks of the PMDC. PMDC Registrar Nadeem said the situation in private colleges is far better than the public sector colleges.
He said the PMDC wants the government to open up new colleges and has only asked the Health Department to apply as per the set procedure. He further said work is ongoing in the Health Department to complete different formalities and the PMDC has raised no objection over opening up new colleges.
