The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has expressed concern over the decision to give admission to 70 medical students from Afghanistan to different Pakistani public sector medical colleges without making them appear in the proficiency test.
Addressing a press conference on Monday at the PMA House, the association’s central president Dr S Tipu Sultan, Karachi chapter president Dr Idress Adhi and other office-bearers said this move was against the basic rules.
“We came to know that it was done in the ‘larger interest’ of the country and to placate the government of the neighbouring country,” they said.
“We fail to understand why these unscrupulous activities are performed in our country on one pretext or the other. Is there any possibility of Pakistani students getting these sorts of admissions to any medical college around the world on same footings as we have offered to the Afghan students? The answer is obviously no. So why are we selling ourselves so cheap.”
They said the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has recently recognised some medical colleges in violation of its own rules and regulations.
“These newly recognised medical colleges including Rehber Medical College, Red Crescent Medical College and Hashmat Medical College do not possess the required faculty for teaching and a 500-bedded hospital for training their students,” they said.
”On top of that, there are four more public sector medical colleges in different cities of Punjab, initially not recognised by PMDC and now the students of medical colleges are allowed to appear in their first professional exams just to ‘save an academic year of these students’.”
They said one of these medical colleges does not even have a faculty and its own building, and students go to another public sector medical college to take their classes. “This kind of mockery in medical education and training of doctors is only possible where there is no merit and rule of law and blatant corruption is the order of the day. We have been persistently saying that merit and only merit, rule of law and basic principal should be practiced in every walk of life in general and health and education in particular. But the ground reality is totally against this practice. Merit and rule of law is being continuously violated with impunity,” they noted.
The PMA office-bearers also said the association has been raising its voice against the malpractices within the PMDC and demanding its total restructuring. “Unfortunately the same group of people is ruling the roost over the affairs of the PMDC and we find ourselves where we are today because of corruption and irregularities.”
